Conor O'Carroll in action for London. Photo by Sheila Fernandes/London GAA
By Cian O’Connell
Conor O’Carroll just likes the adventure. Being a London hurler is never easy, but it brings fulfilment. Playing in the Christy Ring Cup Final at Croke Park against Derry on Saturday is a challenge London will embrace.
In the three years O’Carroll has spent in London, many valuable lessons have been learned. The value of sport and the GAA community has been underlined.
Hurling was always on the agenda with Lisdowney, St Kieran’s College, and Kilkenny underage teams. Then, another chapter was added with Trinity College.
Life, though, has brought O’Carroll to London and the proud St Gabriel’s club. London manager Neil Rogers forged a fine playing career with Birr and Offaly before moving across the water.
O’Carroll relishes operating for Rogers’ outfit. “I’ve never known a man who dedicates so much to London hurling,” O’Carroll says. “I know he's been here a while, but he's my club manager for Gabriel's and also the manager for London hurling as well. He has two young kids as well and a wife in London as well.
“So, she's very understanding, Laura, a great woman and that sure helps when it comes to the home scene as well. He dedicates so much time to both Gabriel's and London hurling, and we're so lucky to have him.”
The London hurling scene mightn’t have significant playing numbers club wise, but the passion is always high. Friendships have been forged. “It wouldn't be the same as clubs at home again where you wouldn't have that same parish,” he explains.
“It's the hurlers and then maybe the management team and then a couple of older men and women that have been involved for years.
“Outside that circle it doesn't get much bigger than that and so what that means is that you don't have the same attendance, but you almost have a stronger connection to them, the few people that are involved. It makes it very tight-knit, not just in the club but in the whole GAA community in London.”
Recently, London have trained the splendid Hazelwood facility which has helped tremendously. “You can do S&C, there's a company that are on site there too,” he says.
“It is a huge help. We used to go training in a place called Grasshoppers in previous years, which is a rugby facility, so we played on rugby grounds. Just because Ruislip doesn't have the lights during the wintertime and so we don't have that flexibility there.
“So being able to have Hazelwood, which has a hurling goals and then also the on-site gym has just meant that the level of professionalism has just gone up another notch.”
Living in Finsbury Park, working near Oxford Circus tube means significant time is spent on the tube and trains, but O’Carroll isn’t complaining. “I'll leave work, if training's at seven o'clock, let's say, I want to get there for usually around 20 to or half past six.
"So, that would mean me leaving just after five o'clock from work. I finish work normally at five, half five, six o'clock anyway, so just a few minutes extra and then I hop on the tube and a train - just have the headphones in, relax on the way out.
Usually, you’d meet a couple of the lads because we're all heading the same direction. It's pretty easy to dig out the hurls on the tube.”
O’Carroll moved to London in 2022 with his British fiancé, who had been studying in Cambridge. It is another neat little story with O’Carroll now living in true red and white Arsenal territory. “The Emirates is outside the window here,” he laughs.
“I wasn't a big football fan before I came over, but it's hard to ignore it when I'm over here now, living so close. So now I've gotten big into Arsenal.”
Gabriel’s and London are certainly on the sporting agenda too.
