By Niall Gartland

IT’S hard to believe now, but Armagh teams traditionally didn’t fare well in the Ulster Senior Club Championship.

That all changed when Crossmaglen emerged as the dominant force at provincial level in 1996, but it would be massively unfair to write off Mullaghbawn’s brilliant, and entirely unexpected, Ulster title win in 1995 as nothing more than a historical footnote.

Consider that they won an Armagh Intermediate title only four years previous, and that’s a measure of their stratospheric rise to the top under their then-manager Peter McDonnell.

We caught up with their former defender Justin McNulty this week – the same Justin McNulty who lined out alongside three Mullaghbawn teammates in Armagh’s greatest ever day in 2002 (his brother Enda, Benny Tierney and Kieran McGeeney).

Great men and great characters, but their provincial success was completely unexpected at the same, as McNulty explains.

“Our big goal at that time was to win an Armagh Championship, and in particular to get one over Clan na Gael, who had beaten us in the semi-final the previous year.

“We got them in the first round in 1995 and we were gunning for them big time, and after that we stumbled our way to the championship, beating Crossmaglen and the Harps.

“We were a bit like Clann Eireann in the final, we hadn’t won one since 1964 and we played fairly poorly on the day.”

It was only the start of the journey as Mullaghbawn traversed through Ulster with victories over Cargin, Castleblayney, and then in the final, Cavan champions Bailieboro Shamrocks. It seemed like a complete bolt from the blue, and McNulty attributes much of their success to the savage work done in training.

“We were innovative as a club team. Peter McDonnell had just come out of St Mary’s, and we were doing circuit training, aerobics, beach training, mountain training at Slieve Gullion.

“I remember one day we were training in Templetown, it was a real dogged session on the beach. We had many killer sessions but they were character building and we knew we’d put in the hard yards at training.

“In those days, perhaps strangely, we’d go for pints after training sessions. On this occasion we were sitting around chatting and one of the lads said ‘eff Clan na nGael, bring on Nemo Rangers!’

“Pints were on board but you knew there was a bit of ambition in the team.”

Having overcome Armagh Harps in the county final, a collective decision was made to go hell for leather in the provincial arena.

McNulty said: “At our first session back, Peter took us over to the Slieve Gullion side of the pitch at Mullaghbawn, and said ‘do you want to go for this or just to go through the motions?’

“We didn’t know anything about the Ulster Championship but we decided, why not give it a lash? But the reason it worked out is because we’d done the hard yards, and the coaching in the club over the years had built a calibre of player who were capable of performing at that level.

“It was a brilliantly family orientated club and we all pushed together to achieve the success we did – and we probably should’ve achieved more, we had the capability of winning the All-Ireland.”

He continued: “For a small rural parish to achieve what we did was phenomenal. We’d been playing at junior level in 1986 so to go from that to winning Ulster in the space of nine years, I doubt any other club has done that.

“We just threw off the shackles, when we went into Ulster we were generally underdogs and I remember Martin McHugh in the Irish News saying Bailieboro were certs to win the Ulster final. But when you look back at the team, we had quality players all over the pitch.”

Mullaghbawn never managed to repeat the trick as Crossmaglen wrestled control of Armagh for what seemed an eternity. But at the same time, McNulty believes that Mullaghbawn’s success paved the way for not only Crossmaglen, but also Armagh, who enjoyed a golden period at the turn of Millennium.

“We gave Cross’ a pathway to success and some of their players will tell you that, it gave them the determination to go one better than us. They did it in incredible style and did it repeatedly which is all credit to them.

“But I think we showed them the way and they’d recognise that if they’re honest. Again I feel very privileged to have been on the same team as so many players who were not just solid footballers but solid men.

“I feel the rivalry in Armagh between teams like Cross’, ourselves, Clan na Gael, Pearse Og and the Harps also led into huge success at county level.

“We were all competitive individuals and competitive teams and that drove Armagh on. I remember the first four men in the parade in the 2002 final were Mullaghbawn men, myself, Geezer, Enda and myself. At the same time we were Armagh players, we were there to play for Armagh while also representing our club.”

While harbouring huge admiration for Clann Eireann’s run to an Ulster semi-final against Derrygonnelly, McNulty believes it’ll be a tall order to emerge as provincial kingpins. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time the underdogs have shocked the world of Ulster football…

“It was heartwarming to see their victory in the Athletic Grounds, it was a wonderful occasion. For them to come in as rank outsiders and to perform the way they did, it was an incredible team performance.

“They have a good team but maybe not the same firepower as Glen or Kilcoo, people say that semi-final is the de facto final. But you never know, the outsiders sometimes win the Ulster Club Championship.”

THE TEAM THAT WON ULSTER…Mullaghbawn’s provincial championship winning team in 1995