Car dealer Terence Donnelly has several outlets strategically placed in Northern Ireland. His biggest showroom is close to his home in Dungannon, Co Tyrone. Last week he dusted down an item bought at a fund-raising auction in 2008. The purchase was made during the euphoria that followed Tyrone winning their 3rd All-Ireland football championship title, the Sam Maguire Cup. 

The Donnelly acquisition is the pair of boots worn in Croke Park 13 years ago by the then team captain and now joint Tyrone team manager, Brian Dooher. 

The boots are small and functional. No flash yellow or purple markings.  

But when Dooher put them on, they were like Billy’s Boots, the set worn by Billy Dane, the  character introduced to readers of the Tiger in 1963. The story in the boys’ comic told how  Billy found in his grandmother’s loft the old boots once worn by a striker called Charles ‘Dead Shot’ Keen. When Billy put them on, he was transformed into a great player. 

Brian Dooher’s boots. Photo: Roisin Donnelly

When Dooher togged out for Tyrone, modest boots included, he too was turbo-charged. Up and down the field, tackling, intercepting, linking play. Spotting the gaps. Chipping in with important scores. Emptying the tank. 

And when the final whistle sounded, he quickly retreated from the limelight into the shadows and prepared for the next game, supplementing the team training sessions with his own private regime. 

Dooher won his first All-Star award in 2003 when, under their new manager Mickey Harte, Tyrone captured their first All-Ireland. Towards the end of that year, I began gathering material for an RTE documentary, screened the following year.  

The thesis around it was that Ulster teams, particularly Tyrone, were on a trajectory that could see the province become the dominant force in football for several years.  

A colleague in the RTE Newsroom, Donagh McGrath, suggested what was the perfect working title for the programme ‘The Men Behind Maguire.’  

It captured a sense of the individuals and their values who were bringing new energy and new hope to GAA in Tyrone.  

But it also alluded to another connection – “The Men Behind Maguire” as in “The Men Behind the Wire”. It was the title of the song written by Paddy McGuigan and recorded by  The Barleycorn in December 1971 in response to the cack-handed introduction of internment by the British government. The line “every man will stand behind The Men  Behind the Wire” summed up the defiant response in nationalist Northern Ireland to what it saw as unfair treatment.

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In the six Northern Ireland counties, the GAA has a unique personality and history. Traditionally, involvement in the association identified one as likely to come from a nationalist home. A youngster carrying a hurley while passing an interface area on his way to school was taking a risk. A carload of young men, coming from GAA training, provided a  certain vibe when halted by a British Army, RUC or UDR patrol on a country road. 

In May 1997 an LVF gang murdered father of six, Sean Brown, in Co Derry. They had abducted him outside the grounds of the GAA club he chaired, Wolfe Tones of Bellaghy. His neighbour, Nobel prize winner Seamus Heaney, was in Greece when he heard the news. He actually heard of the killing after visiting the stadium where the first Olympics were held. 

“I could not help thinking of his death as a crime against the ancient Olympic spirit”, Heaney wrote. “The Greeks recognised that there was something sacrosanct about the athletic ideal and regarded any violence during the period of the games as sacrilegious. Athletics and drama, two of the great civilising activities of Greece, were two of the activities that Sean Brown promoted.” 

In February 1988, 22-year-old Aidan McAnespie died from wounds received from a weapon discharged from a British Army border checkpoint at Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone. He was on his way to a GAA match and was a member of the Aghaloo O’Neills club. The explanation offered by the British Army was that the soldier responsible for the shooting had accidentally discharged his weapon when moving it with wet hands. 

In early 2011, Martin McAleese, husband of the then President, Mary McAleese, and senior Department of Foreign Affairs diplomat, David Cooney, held a meeting with the leading administrators of the GAA at Croke Park.  

They were seeking permission to include a call to GAA headquarters in the itinerary of Queen Elizabeth’s state visit to Ireland. They were conscious they were requesting to bring  the monarch to the place where British forces caused death and injury when they opened fire during a GAA match in 1920. 

Anxious administrators listened and as the question was floated and then looked down the  table to hear the reaction of the Ulster Council general secretary, Danny Murphy. He succinctly stated that if his President and former Co Down neighbour, Mary McAleese, wanted the Croke Park visit to happen, he was in favour of it. 

GAA President Christy Cooney and President Mary McAleese with Queen Elizabeth II as she toured Croke Park in 2011. Photo: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland.

 

Ulster said “Yes”. The Murphy nod was the clincher. No counter argument was made.   

In the 1960s and 70s nationalists identified education as a source of opportunity. At the time the British government was offering grants, not loans, to university students. Catholics grabbed with both hands the lifeline to better themselves. 

As The Troubles continued and the British government sought to curb some of the raw anger in a divided society, state funding for sports and leisure facilities increased significantly. 

The GAA in Northern Ireland spotted an opportunity and had no hesitation in seeking its fair  share of the available funding. Helped by British government grants, GAA grounds and facilities in Northern Ireland improved significantly – they were the envy of many clubs in the neighbouring jurisdiction. The local club as well as the county teams became a source of activity, identity and pride in a very special way. 

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Several wise journalists, Martin Breheny among them, took issue with the thesis in the 2004 ‘Men Behind Maguire’ RTE programme that a period of six county dominance was on the way. Events proved them right. 

Kerry became All-Ireland champions that year. And although Tyrone won titles in 2005 and  2008, in the 12-year period from 2008 to 2020, Dublin were champions eight times, Kerry twice, Cork once and Donegal once.  

With Kerry, it was a matter of mining the gene pool.  

In Dublin, the dominant GAA county of the past decade, success was shaped by a combination of factors. In a very real way Dublin took note of the organised structures in  the most successful Northern Ireland counties and followed the template. Quality  fundraising, organisation, back up support and opportunities through the age levels up to  adulthood became the Dublin formula with the club at the heart of community.  

Critically in the capital city, the GAA made inroads in working class communities where it found exceptional players as well as supporters. 

In the 12 years following Tyrone’s All-Ireland victory in 2008, no team from Northern Ireland managed to repeat the feat. In that barren period, the Ulster Championship continued to be the most competitive provincial competition. Tyrone, Donegal, Monaghan are the  heavyweights but each year Armagh, Derry, Down, Cavan believe this might be their time,  Fermanagh are not without hope and Antrim hold out for a miracle.  

The Ulster championship invariably has more edge and more possibilities than those in the other  three provinces.

Mickey Harte, winner of 3 All Ireland Championships with Tyrone, is the most successful  Ulster manager of the past twenty years. His sides embodied a sense of assertive,  determined, post-conflict nationalism on sporting fields in the early years of the new  millennium.  

They went into matches meticulously prepared. They were committed to do what was necessary to achieve a result. They had a focus and an energy which brought them unprecedented success in the history of their county. 

In 2011, Mickey Harte and his wife and family suffered unimaginable loss when their daughter Michaela was murdered while on her honeymoon in Mauritius. It was a grief that touched every community in Ireland. There was understandable empathy and respect for him as he continued with his public role, managing his county team. 

He and my former employers, RTE, became embroiled in a row. Offence, not intended, was caused and it cut to the core. It resulted in him having no dealings with the national  broadcasting service. His management team and players respected his position and  followed suit. Over the years efforts were made to end the dispute. I had a role in some of them. But all ended in failure. The breakdown was irretrievable. 

In November 2020, Mickey Harte resigned, ending 18 years as Tyrone manager and he was  subsequently appointed to a similar role in Louth. Fergal Logan and Brian Dooher became  the joint managers in Tyrone. They have demanding lives outside their GAA activities – Logan has a busy solicitor’s practice in Dungannon and Dooher is a vet and a senior manager in Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture. 

In his day job, against a Covid backdrop, Dooher had the additional challenges created by the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland. Logan too was attempting to earn his living in a  world grappling with the challenges created by Covid-19.  

Early into their new shared sporting responsibilities, contacts with RTE resumed.  

One important backroom appointment brought strength and conditioning coach, Peter Donnelly, back into the fold on a part-time basis. A native of Coalisland, he works with Ulster Rugby but in 2020 he had given time to Monaghan, managed by Seamus McEnaney, after his link with Tyrone ended.  

Dooher and Logan had worked together before and in 2015 under their joint management, Tyrone won the All-Ireland under-21 championship. But they never sought to use sharp elbows in relation to a senior team role.  

The scale of their challenge was put in context on Saturday June 12th. In the national football league semi final at Fitzgerald Stadium Killarney, Kerry whacked them by 6-15 to 1-14. It was a long, sobering return journey north. It also turned out to be the end of one phase and the beginning of a new one.

Among the four provincial winners and All-Ireland semi-finalists, Tyrone were the outsiders. And it suited them. Even when they ambushed Kerry and put three goals past them, winning by a point, in the semi-final, they were comfortable being viewed as makeweights for the final against Mayo, conquerors of Dublin. 

The team that lined out at Croke Park on September 11th were a throw-back to Mickey Harte’s Tyrone sides in their prime. The focus was absolute. They would not be leaving without the prize.  

Of the many incidents that captured their character, one came in the 59th minute. A long kick-out by the goalkeeper, a magnificent catch by Kilpatrick in midfield, McKenna bearing  down on goal and the deftest of touches to McCurry. Goal. Bulls Eye. Blood drawn. Damage done. 

Five minutes later came another defining incident. Tyrone were a goal ahead but the game was still in the balance. 30-year-old centre half back, Peter Harte, nephew of Mickey Harte, son-in-law of Peter Canavan, ventured into the Mayo half, took a pass, made a mark and stuck the ball over the bar. A killer point. 

Soon after the final whistle sounded, before he brought his baby daughter onto the field, Peter Harte was interviewed live by RTE. As happened when other players and the joint managers were interviewed by Joanne Cantwell on the RTE analysis programme later that  night, the exchanges were respectful. As they should be. 

Is a new phase of the ‘Men Behind Maguire’, led by Tyrone, about to begin or is it an aberration that will quickly be addressed by the likes of Dublin, Kerry and even Mayo?  

One view, likely to gain widespread acceptance, is that Brian Dooher and Fergal Logan, have assembled a committed and talented squad of athletes who are dedicated to their craft. 

They have tasted success for the first time in thirteen years and they will be hungry for  more.  

The GAA’s administrators are grappling with the notion of re-organising the All-Ireland football competition. Regardless, Ulster will remain the place where significant reserves will be required to overcome neighbours before accessing a pathway to Croke Park. 

In a place challenged in a unique way by identity, Tyrone’s unexpected and entirely deserved success lifted spirits and created new hope. In Brexit times it reinvigorated a sense of being part of an all-island structure. The GAA provides that portal in Northern  Ireland.  

Dooher, the player and now manager, with the small feet who leaves a big footprint is one example of the inspirational figures of that GAA community. Linda Ervine, sister-in-law of the former UVF member and former Progressive Unionist Party politician, the late David Ervine, is another. 

On October 21st, in St Patrick’s Cathedral Armagh she will read a prayer in Irish at the ceremony of reflection and hope, organised by church leaders, marking the centenary of partition and the creation of Northern Ireland. 

From a protestant background, she is an Irish language activist and president of a one-year-old GAA club in mainly loyalist East Belfast.  

This sporting life.