Feature: The rise of Inishowen

Four Inishowen clubs remain in the race for Donegal intermediate glory. Michael McMullan spoke to Malin Chairman Pat McLaughlin and Donegal Communications Officer Sinéad Breen ahead of the semi-final weekend

GAELS from across Donegal will descend on Buncrana this weekend with the Intermediate Championship semi-finals down for decision.

Burt were last winners in 2016 and they stand in Naomh Pádraig Uisce Chaoin’s way of a first final in Saturday evening’s game.

Malin have lost two of the last three finals. Their opponents on Sunday afternoon are last year’s Junior champions Carndonagh, who will aim for a first title at this grade since 1997.

Pat McLaughlin is the Chairman of Malin. Putting his club colours to one side and his passionate hope that this is their year, he is a proud Inishowen man.

Add in Buncrana’s narrow defeat to Carndonagh and five of the eight clubs from the region were in the quarter-finals of the intermediate title race.

“Four teams from the one district, now in the semi-finals of the championship, is a first for ourselves in this neck of the woods,” McLaughlin outlines.

“It has really captured the imagination of this area; the crowds are unprecedented. People are saying that there’s the guts of a thousand people at them”

When Carndonagh met Malin in the group stages, an impeccable minute’s silence was held in memory of the late Gerard Callaghan, a giant of Inishowen GAA.

It took a late two-point winner from Christy McLaughlin to pull Malin from the jaws of defeat against Fanad in the quarter-final.

A goal from county hurling star Conor Gartland helped Burt to victory over title favourites Naomh Mhuire.

Uisce Chaoin overcame a St Naul’s team that included both Gavin Mulreaney and Peadar Mogan.

Buncrana will host this weekend’s Donegal Intermediate semi-finals

The semi-final lineup was completed by Carndonagh, who have also landed the county senior camogie and intermediate hurling titles.

“It’s been great that games are being played locally,” McLaughlin said. “We are so remote up here, we are removed from the rest of the county in that respect.

“The travelling distance for a championship game could be two hours, but now there are games that are only 20 minutes up the road.”

Add in the local rivalries and games going right to the wire and it’s added to a special few weeks in Inishowen.

“That and the fact that it is so tight and condensed, that’s what’s really helped,” he added.

Buncrana’s Caolan McGonagle played his 100th senior game for Donegal this year.

Caolan McColgan was given the job of marking David Clifford in Donegal’s league final win over Kerry.

Conor O’Donnell was one of the season’s standout players and, to many, was a strange omission from the 2025 All-Star 15.

All three hail from Inishowen.

“We want everybody to know that we are a county of 39 football clubs,” pointed out Donegal Communications Officer Sineád Breen.

“The more that we have to choose from, the better it is for us. We’ve had a few really good seasons, and we want to keep that going, so it bodes well.”

In recent weeks, Breen has linked in with Stream Sport to bring the Donegal club scene to those who can’t make it to games, including Carndonagh’s win over Buncrana.

“There’s a fantastic camaraderie, but there’s also huge rivalry between these clubs,” Breen added. “I had the run with Naomh Pádraig Uisce Chaoin when they went to the All-Ireland final. I was with them from the get-go, at every single game.

“We were in London twice. I noticed that every single other club in Inishowen backed those boys and their management like it was their own club. It really was phenomenal, and that was very special.”

Burt, Malin and Carndonagh will be hoping Uisce Chaoin’s first semi-final appearance doesn’t extend into taking the Cathal McLaughlin Memorial Cup home.

Both semi-finals this weekend will be livestreamed for whoever doesn’t make it to The Scarvey as Buncrana becomes the epicentre of the Intermediate Championship.

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From Malin to Kilcar or Naomh Columba for a championship game could be two and a half hours.

It’s an hour to Letterkenny. From Malin to Fanad is a trek.

“We’re away from the centre as such,” McLaughlin said. “Fanad Gaels, we look across (the sea) at each other, but it’s still nearly two hours apart to get to each other, so we’re out on a total limb, out in a peninsula.”

That’s the geography people outside Donegal don’t fully fathom. The progress of the Inishowen club to the Intermediate Championship has strengthened the game in the region.

Six clubs are in intermediate, with one guaranteed senior football next season. Urris have made to this weekend’s junior semi-finals.

The other club, Naomh Colmcille, have just recently made the push to field a reserve team.

That’s progress all round, an elevation of standards. Add in Carndonagh camogie and hurling and Burt’s tradition in hurling is well established.

“At underage the work has really gone in,” McLaughlin said of their foundations.

“A lot of us were involved in the Divisional Board, maybe the last 10 or 15 years, and we’ve really put a big emphasis on it.”

With Gerard Callaghan to the fore, they prioritised coaching.

They also put the wheels in motion for Coláistí Inis Eoghain, an amalgamation of the small schools that competed within the Ulster Schools’ competitions.

“The clubs have stepped up,” McLaughlin added. “It was about getting our coaching structures right.

“It’s just the same as a lot of other things and it has worked, hopefully now it’s still on the rise.”

Another factor is the success of Donegal’s senior team, with McColgan, McGonagle and O’Donnell to the fore.

“I don’t know how we’re going to handle Mr O’Donnell now in the semi-final, but we’ll have to come up with a plan,” he joked.

“That’s the kind of thing that have really helped as well, the profile of our county team and Jim McGuinness especially.

“There’s a massive support from this area for them, and that definitely has helped things since 2012.”

Conor O’Donnell will be a focus for the Malin defence this weekend

McLaughlin also touches on improved facilities clubs have invested in.

The focus has swung from soccer to GAA which has helped but there is still the big issue.

“We (Malin) have three players home from Australia for the championship this year,” he added.

“I think Buncrana had a couple of players back but emigration has been a big factor in our area especially.”

Work and study take players to either Dublin or overseas, in comparison to other Ulster counties where a manageable commute to Belfast is commonplace.

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There aren’t many Donegal games Sineád Breen misses. Her daughter AJ is usually there too, helping with the smooth running of promoting a county team.

It has been handed down from Sinéad’s mother, Siobhan McQuillan, herself a former PRO of Monaghan GAA.

During an hour-long podcast recording, you can sense her – and Pat McLaughlin’s – genuine interest in all things Donegal.

The development of Gaelic Games in Inishowen doesn’t just come from the clubs. School is the perfect avenue.

“From my point of view, I think it’s really important that we show everything that is being done at underage within the clubs and also within the schools,” Breen said.

“I’m extremely passionate and proactive about promoting everything that is done within the schools across all of our county.

“It’s no coincidence that Carndonagh were beaten by the last kick of the game in the Markey Cup final.”

Five of the schools in the quarter-finals were from Donegal. St Eunan’s Letterkenny fly the flag in the MacLarnon Cup with Abbey Vocational School at MacRory Cup level, fuelled by the local Four Masters club.

For the last two seasons, South West Donegal was an amalgamation of smaller schools.

“Ulster Schools’ football is an excellent standard but lot of people will ask me why I cover it,” Breen adds.

“It’s an absolute no-brainer because there’s such a link between our clubs, our schools and obviously our underage academies within the county.

“It then feeds into our minors, our U20s and ultimately our seniors.”

Rewind the club back to 2014 and St Eunan’s were MacLarnon Cup champions, beating Coláistí Inis Eoghain in the final.

Darach O’Connor bagged a goal that day and was a surprise inclusion in the Donegal team that almost landed Sam on September’s third Sunday.

It was the same day five of the Inishowen schools’ team were on the minor team that lost to Kerry.

The St Eunan’s goalkeeper was Shaun Patton, with Niall O’Donnell a key man in their attack.

“Coláistí Inis Eoghain was established and Gerard (Callaghan) was the main driver of it,” McLaughlin recalls.

“He came up with this plan in 2010 and we got in to contact with Ulster Colleges. Nobody had ever heard of this kind of a plan before but I think there was something like it in Dublin.

“We got it off the road and it was a great project. I think we had it going for the guts of seven or eight years.

“Then there was a lot of opposition, most certainly some of it was coming from within our own county.”

For the years it was in operation, it was an extra later of concrete in the foundations of where Inishowen GAA is now.

“Donegal didn’t really have that high level of college football, especially in the Inishowen area, there’s three or four secondary schools,” McLaughlin added.

“It was a great wake-up call to see the standards of sport that was being played in the schools or Enniskillen, Maghera and Newry.

“Gerard had a lot of vision and knew where he wanted to take it,” McLaughlin summed up.

“Now, these players are all hitting 26, 27 or 28 now and that probably definitely had a big bearing on it.”

It will all come together this weekend as four teams aim to take their next step towards an intermediate title.

These are magical days for the people of Inishowen, decades in the making. Outside of the local rivalry, Donegal fans will hope this weekend will unearth a few rough diamonds that Jim McGuinness can mould as they chase the dream of bringing Sam back to the Hills.

The only person missing this weekend will be Gerard Callaghan. He’d had been the proudest man on the peninsula.

Check out the Gaelic Lives podcast for the full interview and a look at the legacy of the late Gerard Callaghan. Available on Spotify and YouTube.