A milestone moment for Cúchulainn an Ghleanna

CÚCHULAINN an Ghleanna will formally mark their 10-year anniversary in November – and that’s no small accomplishment for a club that sprung from a traditional footballing heartland.

For the uninitiated, it’s a Clogher Valley-based hurling and camogie club. Well, loosely based in the Clogher Valley. Augher, Clogher, Aughnacloy and Ballygawley, yes, but the club’s catchment area also reaches out towards nearby Killeeshil and Beragh.

Chairing the club at this point in time is Cathal McGarry, a Fermanagh man who lives between Clogher and Fivemiletown. The classic blow-in, like quite a few others spearheading the Cúchulainn an Ghleanna project.

And while preaching the hurling gospel is one element of his involvement, it’s also about maintaining a proud family tradition. He and his four brothers Brendan, Declan, JP, and Kevin all hurled for the Fermanagh senior hurlers, and his ancestral homeland, as he puts it, is a small village east of Ballymena indeliably associated with all-things hurling and camogie – Loughgiel.

They’re otherwise known as the only club from the province to have got their hands on the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship title – and they won it twice. They’re also the dominant force in Ulster Camogie, and it’s where Cathal’s father Kevin lived before moving to Maguiresbridge in Fermanagh.

Cathal said: “My father, who was laid to rest this year, was a Loughgiel man by birth. Like a lot of us, he travelled, and, when he did, what do you do? You go and find your local club and get involved with the community.

“In Fermanagh, he found one of the only hurling clubs in the area, Lisbellaw, and played there for years.

“He had five sons. All of us played club and county, so we were just born and raised in hurling. When you’ve been playing it since you were four years old, I just wanted to give my youngsters a chance as well.

“If they liked it, great. If they loved it, even better. And if they don’t want to play it by the time they grow up, so be it. I just wanted to give them a chance to taste the game.”

McGarry wasn’t quite involved from Cúchulainn an Ghleanna’s very inception, but was convinced to come on board by one of the founding members, Declan Bogue. Nine-and-a-half years after that fateful conversation at a wedding reception, McGarry is still at the coalface. He firmly believes the key factor in youngsters’ development is putting in the work..

“Lads like Willie Maher [the National Head of Hurling], Paudie Butler and Donal Óg Cusack come up here, they’re absolute hurling prophets and it’s class to learn from them.

“But these guys aren’t doing much different from what we are. They’re just doing it faster, more accurately and doing far more of it.

“My cub plays piano, for example. Nobody learns piano by practising half an hour a week. You have to be playing it every day. It’s the same with hurling, football, anything.”

He continued: “We get youngsters for an hour a week. The ones who are improving and pushing on are immersing themselves in it. Do it for 20 minutes a day; don’t do it for one hour a week.

“I’ve a younger fella, he’s five years old, and with anything he does I tell him there are three things you do to make it better – practice, practice, practice. He’s sick of hearing me say it at this stage.”

That aside, the real challenge, though it’s not insurmountable, presents itself when their young members hit the teenage years. There’s a lot going on in their young lives and that makes staying the course difficult.

“We’re as far as U13 in both hurling and camogie, so that’s the real tipping point for us. That’s when, particularly at the bigger football clubs, they’re out three, four, five times a week – between school, club, county development squads. And of course they’re doing music, dancing, whatever it is as well.

“So fourteen is a really difficult point for us. It’s when every other hobby becomes more serious, so it’s about us pushing on and making it as accessible as possible.

“We did have an adult team for a couple of years – effectively a dads-and-lads team. There were a few older people there and maybe they were more ambitious than their engines would have allowed them to be, but it was very good fun.

“That camogie team has been together for four years. Those camogie coaches are fanatics. We’ve got a Clare woman and two Derry women. I suppose we’re a club of blow-ins.”

Just last week, their Post-Primary camogs made a slice of history when they lined out in the club’s first-ever camogie county final. The future looks bright and club chairperson McGarry sets no ceiling on their ambitions. It’s never impossible until it’s done.

“There’s no reason we can’t be providing hurling and camogie for all age groups across the Clogher Valley in the next five years. There’s no reason why we can’t field adult hurling and camogie teams.

“I look at the likes of Lisbellaw, where I came from. They didn’t just start overnight. It was in their 40th year that they opened their first pitch. Look at Éire Óg and Dungannon – same thing. These guys were plugging away and travelling all over the country to get matches, and many-a-man was travelling door to door to bring youngsters out to play.

“I’m not saying we’re going to lift senior championship titles in the next five years, but what I am saying is: why would we not be pushing on for a junior championship? That’s really the ambition for me.

“I come from a background of rugby, hurling and football. I’m not into wasting time building a trophy cabinet. It’s about participation, but it’s about participation at the highest level possible and winning as much as we can.

“Our girls didn’t fail last week by not winning that league. They won by smiling and saying, ‘right, there’s training next week. We’ve a championship in two weeks’ time.’ That’s the win.

“A failure would have been winning a trophy and then the girls disappearing and never coming back again. It’s about getting the big numbers out again and pushing on from there.”