Diarmuid Cahill taking a hurling road less travelled

By John Harrington

Diarmuid Cahill has a better knowledge of hurling’s geography than most.

He was steeped in it from a young age. His father is renowned hurling man, Dinny Cahill, who managed the Antrim, Laois, and Cavan senior hurlers and has coached countless clubs in all four provinces.

A good chunk of Diarmuid’s youth was spent travelling with his father to training sessions all over the country, and he’s clearly inherited some of the same wanderlust.

When Dinny agreed to take charge of the Cavan senior hurlers after they returned to competition for the first time since 2017, Diarmuid offered his services as a player and hurled with distinction for the Breffni County that year.

By then he had finished up club hurling with his native Kilruane McDonaghs in Tipperary having moved to Kildare where he joined Coill Dubh, winning a senior club championship with them in 2015.

In 2018 he was called up to the Kildare senior hurling team and was part of the panel that won the Christy Ring Cup that year.

His own coaching career started with the Kildare U21s and from there he managed the Westmeath camogie team for two years and coached Ballinamere to the 2024 Offaly final.

In 2025 he combined coaching Tipperary club Ballingarry with managing the Longford senior hurlers, and his two-year stint with the Midlanders ended with the ultimate high this year of a Lory Meagher Cup won alongside his father Dinny who was team coach.

Cahill has now answered his native county’s call by joining Tipperary manager Liam Cahill’s backroom team for the 2027 season as goalkeeping coach.

He’s swapping the lowest tier of intercounty championship hurling for the highest, but will always be a vocal proponent of growing the game of hurling outside its traditional powerbase.

His own experience as a player and coach has convinced him that the game can thrive in every corner of Ireland if it’s given the support necessary to do so.

“There are plenty of kids in Longford who if they're introduced to hurling and have the choice to play it, would only love that opportunity,” Cahill told GAA.ie

“There's so much choice now for kids in all sorts of sports like athletics, rugby, handball, tennis, padel, and they should also all have the choice of playing our national sports of both football and hurling in all counties.

“Counties where Gaelic football is the predominant sport should make a big effort to ensure hurling is also an option in every club and counties where hurling is the predominant sport should ensure that all children also have the option of playing Gaelic football in their club.

“Making sure that children in counties like Longford have the opportunity to play hurling is the first thing that needs to happen, but then the big thing is to service that with coaching. I think if you could get coaches to come into developing counties from traditional hurling counties that it would have a big impact.

“I'd love to see recently retired inter-county hurlers donate a bit of their time to go into a county and do a certain amount of work with them. I think that would have a huge impact.

“Bad habits such as not holding the hurley with the correct grip or not striking the ball correctly need to be caught at an early age. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen because the quality of coaching isn't there and you'll still see those bad habits at U15 and U17 level and when players with bad habits eventually make it to senior they'll get caught out.

“If a county like Longford wants to stay in the Nickey Rackard or progress to Christy Ring, and I think they can, then you need hurling people to help clubs at grassroots level to ensure the game is being coached properly. Hurling also needs to introduced into the school environment more in counties like Longford to make it more appealing to more young boys and girls.

“Longford are doing a lot of good work to promote hurling but they and other counties like them could really benefit from external help.

“There are five tiers of hurling but between each tier there is now a gap so what do you do about that gap? I think the GAA could help by backing retired county players to go into the counties and coach the coaches who can then take it back to the grassroots.”

Cahill’s impact in Longford over the course of his two years there attests to the impact that quality coaching can have in a developing county in a short period of time.

He was a late appointee in December 2024 so he had little time to get his ducks in a row and took on much of the coaching work-load himself in his first season.

He laid a solid foundation that year and this year built on it handsomely with the help of high-calibre backroom team that included his father Dinny as team coach, selectors Tommy Hawes and Brían Crossan, Tom Devereux and Jack Greally looking after S&C, nutritionist Ella Cooney, Statistician Ryan Jones, physios Aisling Lyons and Dylan Duffy, and Tony Ghee looking after logistics.

Word quickly spread that no stone was being left unturned to raise the standard of Longford hurling, and some key players who opted out in 2025 returned to the fold this year.

“We had to fight for everything,” says Cahill. “Fight for players to come in and play with us, fight for players to do things right, fight for players to understand what it takes to be in the top tier and it's not just a matter of turning up on a Saturday morning, togging out, and pucking a ball around a field, that a huge amount of work has to go into it in the background.

“Ciarán McNally was our most improved players from 2025 to 2026. He had a fantastic year at corner-back doing the simple things right. He has mastered the simple things so the next thing he has to do is the develop his skills to make himself even better.

“In fairness to Adrian Moran before me he brought it to a new level with Longford and then like any new manager coming in I tried to bring it up another level.

“In 2025 I introduced the likes of good nutrition, protein recovery shakes, and then in 2026 we brought in gps trackers to monitor their work-load to make sure it was good.

“We started using an app to make sure I could monitor what they were doing in the gym. So we brought a lot of professionalism to it and word went around the county that it wasn't just a couple of lads throwing out sliotars at training and off we go.

“We were prepared for every training session and were there an hour or an hour and a half beforehand making sure everything was set out in terms of the drills we would do and that brought great numbers to training in 2026.”

There are only three senior hurling clubs in Longford – Longford Slashers, Wolfe Tones, and Clonguish Gaels – but even though the county’s hurling community is small it’s a proud one.

It’s a testament to their dedication to both the game and their county that Longford managed to reach such a high level this year despite such shallow playing resources.

“For these Longford players winning the Lory Meagher meant the same to them as winning the Liam MacCarthy meant to Tipperary in 2025,” says Cahill.

“The passion they brought to hurling at that level and the belief they had that they could go and win it was huge.

“I really think Longford will go on now and have a good cut at the 2027 Nickey Rackard Cup if they keep believing in what we brought into the team culture in the last two years and the new manager that comes in drives that on to an even higher level than what I had it at.

“The County Board is doing some great development work and the standard of player we’re seeing now at U15 and U17 level in the county is improving all the time so that bodes well for the future.”

Cahill has seen his adopted county of Kildare make great strides in the game since he won that Christy Ring Cup with them in 2018.

They gave a good account of themselves in the Leinster senior hurling championship this year, most notably against Wexford and Galway, but their stint at the top table was a short one and they’ll drop back down to the Joe McDonagh Cup next year.

Cahill believes that if developing counties like Kildare are to really establish themselves as top tier teams they’ll need to be given more of a leg-up than the promotion/relegation rules currently allow.

“I do think rules need to be changed slightly,” he says. “A county like Kildare would benefit hugely from playing for a number of years in the Liam MacCarthy Cup, not just getting to experience it one year and then have to drop down to the Joe McDonagh Cup again.

“They showed this year that they were capable of competing in the Liam MacCarthy and I believe that if they were able to continue playing in it they'd get better year on year.”

Working with the Tipperary hurlers next year will be a very different challenge to what he experienced with Longford for the last two years, and Cahill can’t wait to test his coaching nous at the highest level with his native county.

“My intention was to go back with Longford next year but when Liam Cahill gives you a call then you're always going to say yes to him,” he says.

“I'm over the moon to have the opportunity to work as a goalkeeper coach with my own county and at that level of the game.

“I trained Liam's club Ballingarry last year so I would assume he saw my coaching there and did his due diligence. I won't let him down. That might sound cocky but I'm one of those people who gives their all.

“I had a great time with Longford and I wish them the best going forward, but coming from Tipperary I was always going to jump at this opportunity When you're asked to play for your county or work with your county it should be a given that the answer is yes.”