Looking under the Antrim bonnet: Ciaran Kearney on his Head of Operations role

Ciaran Kearney was recently appointed as Antrim GAA’s Head of Operations. He spoke with Michael McMullan…

CIARAN Kearney is a native of Cushendall and lives in Clonduff but his new role as Antrim’s Head of Operations brings him back to his roots.

Having studied in Scotland, he started his career in GAA administration with the University GAA club before returning to Ireland.

Coaching was another aspect of his life and he managed Cushendall to Antrim and Ulster titles. He was involved with Antrim minors.

He is now four weeks into his latest role with Antrim and has been touching base with various stakeholders across the Saffron County.

In an interview with Gaelic Life, he explains it’s not a quick fix and the focus is on getting more people involved in the running of the county’s activities, supporting them in any way he can. The county’s five-year plan is at the core of his focus and he’ll be looking to see if there are other areas for growth and improvement.

Michael McMullan: You’ve played the game, coached and are now working in the GAA. I assume you come from a GAA family.

Ciaran Kearney: My brother Ronan played in goals for Cushendall for years and was on the Antrim panel at different periods. My other brother Niall was North Antrim Chairman and other county committees. Mark is another brother, who played for Sligo, for London, was out in America and is now back home where he managed the Cushendall minors. My dad Kieran was on the minor team that won the club’s first minor championship 1963, was a selector when Cushendall won their first senior championship in 1981, and he was manager of the seniors in 1984 when they lost a county final. He has held different administrative roles and my mum Eileen (nee Graham) is from a big GAA family in Glenariffe.

MM: You weren’t going to miss an involvement in GAA then.

CK: I played underage for Cushendall and Antrim. We won an All-Ireland u-16 B and I then spent two years on the minor panel.

In my first year, I was the sub-goalkeeper, then outfield the following year, in 2002. We were beaten by Wexford in Parnell Park by three points. I left Garron Tower because they weren’t doing PE at A level and I wanted a career in sport.

I went to study sport at Ballymena Tech and my cousin Brian got me to help me out with the u-10s. That team had players like Eoghan Campbell and Sean McAfee, so that’s where I started. I also played football for Glenravel from u-14 to minor.

MM: Where did the GAA administration begin then?

CK: I spent four years in Dundee at university. There wasn’t much hurling in Scotland at the time, played a right bit of Shinty, and played a lot of Gaelic football. I was the secretary of the club and that was my first administration experience, coordinating fixtures and buses and all of that when I was 20 or 21. That was probably my first proper taste of administration, back on the days before WhatsApp when I was probably using a Nokia 3210. When I came home from university, I spent a year working at Cross and Passion before going back to Scotland where I spent three years as the Development officer for Scotland GAA. It was primarily football based but I hurled for Warwickshire in the Lory Meagher for a year. I came home after that and spent three years as the Administration Manager for Ulster Camogie. I went back playing and spent a few years coaching Antrim u-14 development squads, with players like Conall Cunning and Keelan Molloy?

MM: What years were you involved managing the county minors?

CK: I was asked to take on the county minors after that, in 2015 and 2016. In that first year, Gerard Walsh was the captain alongside players like Christy and James McNaughton.

MM: You mentioned working in Cross and Passion. Did you think about becoming a teacher?

CK: I did initially look at doing a PGCE, but then there were just elements of some of it I wasn’t dying about and I decided it maybe wasn’t the thing for me.

MM: You live in Clonduff now.

CK: We were both living in Belfast and my wife is a teacher. I was working at the House of Sport at the time with the NI Sports Forum and we decided that wherever a teaching job came up we would go, either North Antrim or South Down. At that stage I was in with Cushendall seniors and started in 2018. I moved to Hilltown halfway through that season and thankfully Arron Graffin had just made the move there as well, so we shared the journeys up and down to Cushendall for the two years.

MM: Your last job was in Croke Park with the Higher Education competitions. Was it linked with the CCCC?

CK: My job involved looking after what they called the development competitions, so I was to serve for the development CCC. I looked after all of higher education and post-primary schools at All-Ireland level. It also included the All-Ireland Féile, academy squads, All-Ireland minor, competitions like the Celtic Challenge, and the Tain Óg and Cuchulainn leagues. Jarlath Burns brought in the Hurling Development Committee and I was the secretary of it.

MM: So, what about the new role with Antrim?

CK: These jobs generally don’t come up very often. I thought long and hard about it. I wasn’t looking to get out of Croke Park in any way. With my role, there was a lot of work across different departments and that was really enjoyable to engage with people. You were involved in certain match days and different competitions and events. The attraction was to do something and to take a leading role in your own county. Everybody that knows me knows I’m a very passionate Antrim man. I’d be a very, very regular attender at games. I wanted to get involved and to try and help drive Antrim and to build on some of the good work that’s been done over the last number of years.

MM: Is your new role about dealing with coaching, finance, fixtures and things like sponsorship? It’s probably a wide enough remit.

CK: Counties have a Head of Games and Alfie Hannaway has a good handle on that but I’m there to provide Alfie and his team support where needed, but ultimately they have the control of that. I have the responsibility to line manage but I’m confident in the team that they have. A lot of it is governance, policies, practices, procedures, just the day-to-day operations of a county.

There will be other responsibilities going forward in terms of looking at income generation and opportunities that we can build on to help drive Antrim forward and the Antrim brand.

I’ve had a good positive engagement with a number of sponsors over the last couple of weeks, just looking about the procedures that we have in terms of how we run our games and how we run our activities.

It’s fairly wide once you get your head under the bonnet, as I’ve referenced a lot. I’m not there to make immediate decisions or actions. There’s a County executive there that are the ultimate decision makers, I’m very, very encouraged with the relationship that I have with them, particularly Seamus McMullan, the chairman. He has been very supportive and has allowed me the opportunity to come in take a look at things, what works well, what can we tweak, what can we improve.

I’ve tried to get speaking to as many people to understand how they operate so that I can help and support them and if there ways that we can improve. I’ve sat down with different county managers in the last number of weeks and with Brendan Murphy, the head of athletic development, to see how can we help drive things forward.

MM: Is part of it a link between Antrim and Croke Park?

CK: Going forward, I’m the primary contact point for the county in terms of fixtures, general day-to-day operations and activities. There’s the treasurer there, Angela Callan, and she’s doing a fantastic job. We had a county executive management meeting on Monday so I’m understanding how things are. We’ve just come to the year end and just to say how do we prepare ourselves for the new season ahead. When I was telling my colleagues in Croke Park that I was leaving, they were telling me of the really positive relationship with Frankie Quinn, in terms of fixtures engagements and dealing with the Ard Stiúrthóir’s office and long may that continue.

The finance team in Croke Park seemed to be encouraged about the financial practices of the county and how that operates.

There are things you can learn and maybe make tweaks. Everybody can do things, but I’ve been actually positively encouraged.

People can have perceptions about every county board but you need to put your head under the bonnet and really see things with a wide scope of expectations on volunteer county officers. It’s absolutely phenomenal. The unseen work even over the last number of weeks since I’ve come in, even the processes around getting enough gate people to do the games. There’s a good process there in terms of making sure that they’re all covered. There’s just such a wide level of activity that people take for granted, from volunteers and I’m there to try and help and support, to make things easier for them.

MM: I was up at Dunsilly last season and saw there is a new gym. It is important for the county to have a base.

CK: Everybody has a vision of what they would love to see at a county centre. I’ve been lucky in Croke Park to be able to see them all around the country. The first concern is how many pitches do you have and how good are the pitches because that’s the main thing. The ancillary facilities, yes we have a gym there. There’s probably a love to improve the dressing rooms going forward. Is there a view to make it maybe more spectator-friendly possibly? There are things there you need to take at look at. Different counties have different types of needs, but Dunsilly has been a huge benefit over the last number of years and obviously dealing with the number of teams that Antrim have.

I’ve been blown away by the improvement of how we resource and support our academy squads. I was with the u-14s for three years before moving to the minors in 2015 and 2016. We are light years away now of what we’ve done with our minors and teams 10 years ago. It’s so much more professional how they’re looked after, how they’re prepared in terms of nutrition, strength and conditioning and just being able to provide them the games opportunities that they need.

MM: There has been obviously a lot of talk about the need for Casement Park as a venue for Antrim. You are only into the role, but is it something you have an input to.

CK: At this stage it’s not something I have engaged in just because of the time frame of me coming in. I have enough to be getting on with at the minute. Obviously, discussions are ongoing between Antrim, Ulster and Croke Park. It’s something I’m sure I’ll get more engaged in.

MM: I assume you feel it’s important to get the issue resolved.

CK: As an Antrim supporter, we all want Casement Park to be built. My memories as a Cushendall man is going to see championship finals. As a kid, I was probably too young really to take in the likes of the ‘89 team but I have very good memories of the Ulster Championship against Derry and Down in the Ulster Hurling Championship.

I was at the football game between Antrim and Derry in 2000 when Anthony Tohill grabbed the ball just above the crossbar. We would all love to see a rocking Casement Park in whatever capacity that it is. Obviously, it’s a huge project and it’s something that I think everybody across the county would love to see. Making it happen has obviously been a challenge but it’s something that Antrim are very, very committed to.

MM: In terms of football progression, there is a lot of discussion around getting Antrim schools to MacRory Cup level. Is this something that the county need to look towards?

CK: We’ve started with a (Combined Belfast) team in the Rannafast Cup. They were up against St Ronan’s of Lurgan and it was a bit of an unknown. I was at the game and the lads performed very well. With club activity going on, they weren’t able to get challenge games, so, when you’re bringing a combined squad together for the first time, you don’t really know what’s going on. From Antrim’s perspective, lads need greater exposure to A-level football. It’s happening at one of the younger age grades and it is an ambition of the lads to do this at MacRory. They wanted to see how we could facilitate it at a lower level first in terms of the logistics. From the buy-in from the coaches, in Gerard McNulty you couldn’t get a better coach to lead it, Paddy McBride and Kevin Niblock are there with their relevant schools. If lads, either within their own school and then within a combined squad, are seeing those guys, along with coaches like Gerard, it provides them greater exposure. I would imagine they’re frustrated that they didn’t win last week but also quite encouraged by the fact that we were competing here against St. Ronan’s Lurgan. People will look at it in the first instance and say, what are we doing here? For the development of football, everybody would love to see Antrim compete and we’d love to see the likes of Fermanagh compete more. How do we get them to compete? Expose more to more top-level football.

MM: You have been in the role four weeks but is there a short-term focus or is it about what follows further down the line?

CK: Whenever I did my interview, I had to give a presentation on what would I’d do in the first 100 days. As I have said before, My first 100 days is getting my head underneath the bonnet, seeing how the day-to-day operations go. Until I get my first 100 days over me, I can’t be coming in saying I’m going to change the world. Some of it might not need changed and some things I thought might need changed don’t and other areas might need changed. There’s a county strategic plan there and ultimately I’m there to help support the delivery of that. The strategic plan was only launched and it runs to 2030, so I’m not going to come in and rip up the script. My job is to ensure and support the delivery of the strategic plan that had a full engagement process with the clubs within the county. That’s the views and perspective of the clubs. That’s the long term, ensuring the needs of the strategic plan are met. If there are other areas that we can develop, outside of that, based on some of the skills that I have had or my experiences, or other things that I see that would need done, then we’d go into that too. I was involved actually in writing the previous strategic plan which we launched and then Covid came.

MM: Have you any other thoughts about what may be coming down the line?

CK: Whenever it was announced. I was blown away by the messages of support from people who reached out from across Antrim and beyond to wish me all the best. Quite a number of people said that if I ever needed anything, I was to get in touch. Sometimes people say they feel as if they have to say that, but I followed up with two or three people they said they would. I have things for these people to do over the coming months. The one thing you learn is, everybody that’s involved with a county executive or any committee, they’re heavily involved in other things to within their own clubs. Seamus is the county chairman but he is an underage coach in Glenravel. Our secretary of the CCC, Sinead Mullan, is also heavily involved with St Gall’s, Sinead Mullan. The people that were around the table on Monday night at a county executive meeting, they don’t just do the county role. They’re heavily involved in three or four other things. One thing that we need to do everywhere, is to engage more volunteers with particular skill sets that we need. There are good financial practices there like the Saffron Business Forum with Tony Shivers and the guys. They do fantastic work and it’s the same with Club Aontroma.

MM: Is it then a case of developing more sub committees to spread that load?

CK: The strength of the business forum is that it has a strong committee behind it. Tony is probably the lead but he’ll tell you he is a really good group of people behind him. The expectations now, of a county communications officer for example, is phenomenal. I have spoken to a couple of different counties about how they do certain different things. I spent time contacting county officers in different places that I have a good relationship with.

MM: I suppose every county will have a different approach.

CK: Something else I am looking at, something I have keen interest in – from a dual perspective – being a North Antrim man but also having lived in Belfast, is the whole area of demographics. I learned an awful lot about it in Croke Park through the work of Peter Horgan, Benny Hurl and Conor Weir.

Looking at the birth rates in the parishes of Cushendall, Cushendun, Armoy and Carey, how many kids are going to school in those villages? In three years’ time, what’s the likelihood that they will each be able to field it u-8 team? Do we need to prepare that Cushendall and Glenariffe have to amalgamate at underage? How do we best prepare for that? We must understand the potential numbers in terms of teams at different levels for things like pitch usage.

There are different things there for a county like Antrim. There’s the opportunity where school numbers are massively increasing in places like Lisburn or Glenavy. We have to best prepare so we can tell a club that in 10 years’ time they need more teams at a particular grade. If they need two u-14 teams, what does that actually mean then in terms of pitch space and facility usage? We have to think ahead rather than worrying about it when it happens. It’s really, really about getting yourself probably ahead of the game as much as possible.