By Shaun Casey

2023 was the first ever championship meeting between Clare and Monaghan. It was also one last time midfielder Darren O’Neill wore the yellow and blue Banner jersey. His life has changed significantly since then.

A member of the Éire Óg club in Ennis, O’Neill won three Clare SFC titles in the last four years and reached the semi-finals of the Munster Club Championship in 2024, but Loughmore Castleiney of Tipperary ended their journey.

In February of this year, O’Neill’s transfer from Éire Óg to Truagh Gaels in Monaghan was approved and the 165-mile move was complete. As the story usually goes, it was love that led to his relocation.

“My partner is a local and we have a 15-month-old son, and she has lots of siblings up here with younger kids, so it suited to be up around them,” said O’Neill of the move north.

“My siblings are younger and have no kids and my parents are just newly retired so it’s a bit of a different set up down in Clare.

“We just have a few more people around us that are in the same position with kids and that. Emma has been away from home for a long time, we lived in Dublin together and then moved to Clare for a good number of years, so she was looking forward to settling at home.

Darren O’Neill, pictured left

“It was very tough, but you can’t make these big life decisions based on football. We had some run with the club, and we’d have been upset that we didn’t do better in Munster because we have a very good team at the moment.

“It’s very hard to leave when you’re winning and, in that environment, but some things are just more important, and life decisions have to be made but it’s worked out for the better and I’m really enjoying it up here.”

O’Neill entered the fray in the 56th minute of that 2023 championship tie and moved straight to midfield to pick up Gary Mohan. As fate would have it, come club championship time this season, the pair will likely partner each other at centerfield for Truagh.

“I actually would have been marking him that day when I came on,” recalled the 34-year-old. “They had a good few midfielders around that time, they had young Karl Gallagher, and they had quite a big midfield back then.

“In those years, most of the kickouts would have been going short so I don’t think we actually contested too many kickouts. I haven’t had a chance to play with him yet but I’m looking forward to pairing up with him in midfield and seeing how we get on.”

Truagh, who also have Ronan Boyle and Louis Kelly on the county panel, sit seventh in the ten-team Division One league table, having won two of their five outings and O’Neill is enjoying the competitive edge of the Farney County club football.

“The results probably haven’t gone our way but I think the games up here are very tight, it’s a very competitive league and different to what I’m used to,” he continued. “The league in Clare isn’t really that competitive because of the dual status in the county.

“You’re always missing a lot of lads and you kind of just do what you have to do but in Monaghan, with the league linked to the championship, it’s very competitive.”

Darren’s clubmate Gary Mohan

O’Neill will be an interested spectator at St Tiernach’s Park, Clones this Sunday afternoon and hopes his native county can bounce back from their difficult opening round defeat to Down, but knows they’ll be up against it.

“Monaghan are on a real upward trend; they got straight back up to Division One and they’ve been going well in the championship. They seem to have all their players ticking over.

“I think Clare will be very disappointed with their home loss to Down. I didn’t see it coming. I really fancied Clare that day because our record in Cusack Park would be strong, but the lads just looked like they lacked energy.

“They’ll be hurting after that so if they can get a big response, you just never know with Clare. They definitely have the personnel to hurt teams, so it just depends on how they react to the Down game.

“Monaghan are going to be the bookies favourites being at home and with the way they’re playing, their main lads are in good form, but I’d love to see Clare throwing the shackles off to see what they can do.”

As for the colour of jersey his son will be wearing on Sunday, O’Neill hasn’t raised that topic at home just yet. “I’ll try to just slide on a Clare jersey! He spent more of his life in Clare than he has in Monaghan, so we’ll see what happens.”