UNDER A blazing midsummer sun, Moycullen has spent the week frozen in deep grief. It is borne of the rawest sorrow.
A great sadness has overcome this picture postcard part of Galway. In the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the village last Friday, people came to celebrate the life and mourn the death of Paul Clancy.
The giants of Galway football were present, but so were the locals who watched him grow from a young boy with a precise left boot into a two-time All-Ireland winner.
Paul Clancy was the wonder of the GAA made flesh, nurtured by the grassroots, gifted enough to thrive on the biggest stage, and determined thereafter to tend to the coming times, to encourage and inspire just as he once was.
The loss of Paul Clancy, who was buried on Friday, will be keenly felt in Moycullen and beyond
The timing of his death had a poignancy for those on the outside looking in. He was due to be in Croke Park at this year’s football final, part of the Galway jubilee team honoured for their 2001 All-Ireland win.
It’s less than a year since the funeral of his brother-in-law, Don Connellan, was held in the same church. At this year’s Connacht final, Connellan was represented by his young son Eoin among the Roscommon side celebrated for their provincial championship win 25 years ago.
Clancy and Connellan were instrumental in Moycullen’s emergence as a force in senior football in Galway. Clancy was the club chairman, Connellan the manager of the team that made the breakthrough in 2020, leading them to another one in 2022, and following that up with a Connacht club title the same year.
Clancy wascinstrumental in Moycullen’s emergence as a force in senior football in Galway
Sean Kelly was a star on both of those teams, another feted son of this picturesque place often described as the gateway to Connemara.
The Kelly family are embedded in the local club. Sean’s late father Padraig, better known as ‘Dandy’ was a celebrated player on Galway senior teams of the 1980s.
He died suddenly in 2001, aged just 40. Sean was four at the time.
This, then, is a club that has had to endure its time in the darkness, that has had glorious days on the field and heartbreaking ones off it.
Sport is no match for death, but it is a consolation, often just a distraction.
Sean Kelly is another feted son of Moycullen and is currently captain of Galway footballers
Barry Cullinane soldiered alongside Paul Clancy in the Galway colours in the 2000s. He spent four years on teams beside Clancy, including a Connacht title in his debut season in 2005.
They were at opposite ends of the career spectrum, and Cullinane remembers the thrill of getting to tog out alongside one of the heroes that he watched win All-Irelands as a fan.
He explains the talent of Clancy with two examples from his career.
‘There are lots of clips going round the past few days, the point against Armagh, his pass to Deccie (Meehan) for the goal against Kerry in the 2000 final replay,’ says Cullinane.
‘But I remember in that final he spent most of his time with Seamus Moynihan for company, and he gave Moynihan bags of it. Five years later, we played a Connacht final and he was centre-back on Ciarán McDonald. There aren’t many footballers around now who could do both of those jobs.’
Cullinane speaks of the blow to Moycullen, coming so soon after the passing of Don Connellan, and he mentions club stalwart David Cox, who died in 2022, less than two weeks after his son Charlie won an All-Ireland minor medal.
Barry Cullinane has seen the blows Moycullen have taken over the years up close
He talks, too, of ‘Dandy’ Kelly, a man whose devotion to club and county has been matched by his sons. Sean was joined in the squad that reached the 2022 final by his brothers Eoghan and Paul.
The three also started in a victorious Sigerson Cup final together for NUIG.
It is the eldest brother who has established himself not merely as a cornerstone of Padraic Joyce’s Galway team, and their painstaking effort to win an All-Ireland, but as an inspiration for Galway supporters.
Cullinane makes a telling comparison with a stalwart on the county’s hurling team.
‘I would liken him to Daithí Burke. There’s a huge affinity among the fans for Sean. Now, more people have heard Sean speak than Daithí, but he’s the same kind of quiet figure, doesn’t court the media, has no interest in the limelight, not a big brand ambassador.
‘He just gets on with it.
‘To me, he’s the best talent Galway have produced since Michael Meehan – and that includes Damien (Comer) and Shane (Walsh).
‘It’s his level of consistency, he does it day in and day out, for Moycullen and for Galway.
Keely’s level of consistency for Moycullen and for Galway makes him stand apart from others
‘Athletically, mentally, he’s a warrior.’
His importance to Galway has become apparent in the way he’s been used since making his championship debut under Kevin Walsh in 2018.
He has moved across the defence and up as far as the half-forward line.
By 2022, he was settled in the full-back line, but his quality on the ball means he has moved out the field since then. And since the game was transformed by the FRC changes, the middle third is his obvious home.
Kelly’s first year as Galway captain was 2022, which saw him lead the county into an All-Ireland final lost narrowly to Kerry.
It was how he conducted himself in the quarter-final against Armagh that was a first introduction to his character for those only vaguely aware of the man.
He was sent off following the row between the two sets of players as the teams left the field before extra time.
This was despite him clearly trying to act as a mollifying influence, trying to draw the heat from an absurd few minutes. He looked stunned when referee David Coldrick showed him a red card, along with Aidan Nugent of Armagh, when the teams emerged for extra time.
What Kelly did next stood out, though – he shook Nugent’s hand and walked off the pitch. There were no histrionics, no futile pleading.
Kelly’s first year as Galway captain was 2022, when they lost an All-Ireland final to Kerry.
The red card was rescinded, Kelly served no ban and played in Galway’s semi-final win over Derry and in the final defeat to Galway, but that incident made it easy to understand why he was Joyce’s captain, and why he remains in the role four years on.
And with the prospect of a buoyant Dublin support swinging in behind their team in Croke Park this afternoon, Kelly’s nous will be vital to Galway.
By last Saturday night, and Armagh’s exit from the championship at the hands of Kerry, Galway were the clearest challengers to the defending champions.
But Dublin’s shock win over Donegal has seen them installed, if not as outright contenders, then certainly dark horses, the classic team who mightn’t be good enough to win an All-Ireland yet, but could be good enough to upset a favourite.
There has been talk in recent days of Matthew Thompson nearing fitness, while Galway’s stock of skyscraping middle third fielders makes them a daunting challenge for an opposition goalkeeper.
Kelly remains vital, though. Fitness problems that stalked him in earlier seasons appear to have eased.
‘I was involved with the Galway Under 21s in 2016 and 2017,’ recalls Barry Cullinane.
‘We got to an All-Ireland final but in 2016 he was dogged by injury, 2017 not too bad, but then in with Galway seniors in 2018 and 2019 he had hamstring issues. But he seems to have come through that.
Fitness problems which have niggled Kelly and curtailed his playing time appear to have eased
‘He’s had niggles here and there, but overall he’s been in good shape for a fair period of the last seven or eight years.’
The importance of that to the collective effort can’t be underestimated, he says.
‘For players like him, and this goes back to Daithí, if they’re absent then it affects the mindset more than the practical effect of it on the pitch.
‘If the hurlers lose Daithí, they can replace him with someone else, but it’s the mental loss that you have to worry about. The same goes for Sean, I think.
‘People rally behind players like that, and when he’s on the team they feel they have a chance.
‘When Sean is on the pitch, he brings a level of energy they miss so much when he’s not there.’
Comer and Walsh were eye-catching influences in Galway’s second-half burst in the Connacht final that looked to be enough to win the game.
Damien Comer and Shane Walsh, two of Galway football’s most recognisable faces
But Kelly was pure class throughout that period. He was nominally at wing-back, but he drove his team forward time and again, linking play in attack, alert for breaks, an anchoring figure in a contest that eventually became loose and then unbiddable.
Galway’s kickout is the only area of doubt that remains in the team. The absolute premium on retaining possession from restarts has become more and more obvious as this season has gone on.
And Dublin monstered Donegal’s highly regarded kick-out strategy last Sunday.
It means the middle-third exchanges will be decisive. So that’s the place to look for Kelly.
Where Galway’s need is greatest, he can be found. Galway are immeasurably strengthened when it’s the middle-third cockpit where Kelly is at his most effective, and where the biggest games are settled now.
He will have been a big feature of Dublin’s planning this week. In the spirit of the old adage of hammering the hammer, stopping Kelly means going a long way to stopping Galway.
‘Shane is a brilliant, brilliant talent but for me, I just think Sean Kelly is the complete footballer,’ concludes Cullinane.
‘He was probably played out of position for a long time for Galway, out of necessity, but he keeps bringing the battle.
‘And on top of all that, he’s a good lad, top, top quality.’
He will captain his team today after another harrowing week for his club and his homeplace.
The people of Moycullen have become too acquainted with devastating loss, and there’s a poignant but powerful symbol in one of their own leading the Galway team out in Croke Park on the biggest day of the GAA year so far.
Sean Kelly can only play his own game. A big performance can’t mend broken hearts or lift the deepest of sorrows from a family or a community.
But he and his people know well enough by know that just going again, togging out one more time, bringing the fire one more time, is important in itself and in the example it provides.
Clancy with current Galway manager Padraic Joyce, who soldiered together to great success
Paul Clancy gave the eulogy at the funeral of Don Connellan. He concluded a heartfelt tribute with a quote from that ageless anthem to this part of the world, The West’s Awake.
‘Alas and well, may Éireann weep, for Connacht lies in slumber deep’.
The tears fell in Moycullen and beyond it this past week, and they will fall for a long time to come.
Through the heartbreak, the spirit exemplified by those gone before their time will remain undimmed, an example, perhaps, but also a guidelight, showing the coming generations the way forward.
Tomorrow won’t be denied. It’s a sometimes bewildering aspect of grief, but it’s an unarguable one.
The maroon hordes will spill out of the Galway football heartlands this morning, destined for Dublin, the pain of a crushing week still palpable, but despite all, making the journey.
And somehow, they’ll find it in themselves to cheer on a team led by another proud son of Moycullen, a man who keenly understands loss, but also what it is to go again, inspired by those gone too soon, by loyalty to those who remain, and by a shared passion that could never dim.
The west’s awake.
