By Daire Walsh

AFTER missing out on the majority of last year’s inter-county season, Fermanagh’s Brenda Bannon has come into 2026 with a renewed appetite and an added layer of responsibility.

In the wake of playing a starring role when the Erne women defeated Louth in the TG4 All-Ireland junior football championship final in 2024 – her third time to collect the West County Hotel Cup, following previous successes in 2017 and 2020 – Bannon subsequently elected to go travelling in Australia.

While she didn’t see any on-field action, the Derrygonnelly Harps footballer did return to collective training with Fermanagh in the latter stages of their All-Ireland intermediate championship campaign in 2025.

This is something Bannon felt was important given her desire to line out for the Ulster county in 2026 and she has started both of their Lidl National Football League Division 3 games to date. Now amongst the most experienced players on the panel having first made her senior bow in 2014, Bannon is also one of Fermanagh’s vice-captains this season under new manager Barry McKenna.

“When I was announced as vice-captain, it came as a bit of a surprise. I guess now, we’re quite a young team. I would be one of the older on the panel and I wouldn’t even consider myself that old. I’m 30. I wouldn’t be outspoken as such, but I would definitely be leading more so by example in terms of my leadership qualities,” Bannon explained.

“I had come back in just after the Roscommon game [in the All-Ireland group stages] last year. It was more so just to supplement the team training, to see how it goes because I was away for seven and a half, eight months travelling. I was there then for the All-Ireland quarter-final with Tyrone, but not starting obviously.

“I was so surprised at how much the girls had come on last year in my time away. So, I was chomping at the bit to get back in playing now this year. It has nearly got a whole new sense to it. I’ve a whole new sort of hunger for it now this year after the few months away last year.”

During her absence in the spring of 2025, Fermanagh gained promotion from Division 4 of the Lidl National Football League along with provincial rivals Antrim. Now back in the third-tier of the NFL for the first time in five years, the Erne County have played out a brace of highly-entertaining encounters thus far in 2026.

After sharing the spoils with Laois (3-13 apiece) at Heywood on January 25 – with Bannon contributing three points – Fermanagh did likewise when they welcomed Roscommon to Tempo Maguires seven days later. In another goal-laden affair, the hosts’ final tally of 4-8 matched up evenly with the haul of 3-11 that was accumulated by their Connacht rivals.

Although they are showing significant life as a newly-promoted side, Fermanagh could very easily be sitting on maximum points heading into the third round of Lidl NFL Division 3. Tomorrow also sees them in action against Louth and Bannon believes her side are more than capable of claiming their first win of the current calendar year.

“We’ve had a fair few derbies with Louth. We’re very familiar with each other. They’ll be looking to win especially the home games, but we do fancy ourselves and I think we’re overdue a win now this weekend. Really, really looking forward to that game. It will probably be two evenly matched teams and it will be a brilliant one for the spectator.

“One of our main goals for the year would be retaining Division Three status. We feel whenever we get momentum with the personnel that we want playing on the pitch, and playing our system of play that we would like to be playing, we do feel like we should be competing with definitely the top one and two, if not three teams, in Division Three.”

Away from the playing field, Bannon has undertaken an interesting career transition in recent times – albeit one with a strong connection to the world of sport. A graduate of Ulster University, Bannon qualified in diagnostic radiography and worked in hospitals across a number of different locations – including Louth, Sligo and Liverpool.

However, she also started to take an interest in strength and conditioning coaching six years ago and has since obtained a masters in this particular subject.

In the match programme for Fermanagh’s aforementioned All-Ireland JFC final triumph over Louth on August 4, 2024, Bannon’s occupation was listed as ‘S&C Coach/Radiographer’. Yet just a short while after their 1-11 to 0-12 victory at the expense of the Wee County, Bannon opted to solely focus on the world of S&C, and she is currently operating her own business as an Online S&C Nutrition Coach.

While it is always a big move to switch careers when you have been working at a previous occupation for a considerable length of time, Bannon (who was in Croke Park earlier this week for a Gaelic Players Association Make-A-Wish official charity partnership launch) is extremely happy with the choice she has made.

“I suppose your happiness is just a massive price to be paying if you’re in a career that you don’t love. Then the transition was gradual for me as well, in that I went part-time first and then I took a career break. I’m actually towards the end of that career break at the moment, so the transition was sort of seamless for me,” Bannon added.

“It has taken an awful lot of work. People think ‘oh, if you’re an online S&C coach, you just write a programme and that’s it’. There is a lot more to it as such. It has taken definitely the five years to build up my business to where it is now. It’s something I love and there’s a massive variety in every day.

“I’m basically a freelance strength and conditioning coach at the minute, so I work in a hybrid capacity. One-to-one online with individual athletes and then also with teams. Deliver some workshops around nutrition, health and performance, and injury prevention as well.”