Shane O'Donnell commits to Clare for 2026

By John Harrington

Shane O’Donnell has confirmed that he will hurl for Clare in 2026 if team manager Brian Lohan calls him up to the panel.

The Éire Óg Ennis man is currently nursing a few niggling injuries that he won’t get the opportunity to fully rehab until the season is over for the recently crowned Clare champions.

But if he can get his body right his mind is willing to go again for the Banner County next year.

“If Brian will have me back, the intention is for me to play next year, but it really is a question of whether I'm able to clear quite a number of injuries that have kind of accumulated this year," said O'Donnell today at the launch of the AIB Club Championships.

"I think chasing the shoulder back, I would probably try it again, but it was not the right decision, really.

“I think I ended up kind of coming back into the championship undercooked a small bit on everything else, even though my shoulder was technically passed the test to get back.

“And it led to quite a challenging year in terms of just being fit, staying fit for the matches that I had. But, at the same time, I don't think I would be able to avoid chasing that, getting back for that Tipp game.

“So, that's just the reality of the situation, it's going to be a long off-season when it comes to try and get a number of things right. But if I can get them right and they react well to the rehab, then I intend to play next year.”

The decision to commit to Clare again next year was made easier by their early exit from this year’s championship.

Failing to make it out of Munster a year after winning the 2024 All-Ireland title stung, and has given the older cohort in the panel the hunger to make amends in 2026.

“Yeah, definitely,” says O’Donnell. “Coming out of 2024 there was a number of us in the Clare panel that were saying we'll do one more year and then that's it really. And I think coming to the end of the Clare campaign this year when we realised we were out the week of the Limerick game, I was still under the impression that we were all kind of wrapping up.

"I kind of accepted that this was going to be my last game and then I turned to, I think it was Davey Mac (David McInerney) and I said something to the effect of 'God, it's tough to do your final Clare session, isn't it?'

“And he was just like, 'no, no, I'll be back next year.' He had told me 100% under no circumstances he was going again, so then I kind of had to re-evaluate if all the players of my vintage were going to be going again, that maybe there was another year in it.

“And, yeah, after the disappointment, it just would have been really difficult to leave it at that. Now, like I said, there's a number of physical kind of barriers and hurdles I have to get through to actually be able to put myself in contention to be in any way useful for next year, but the intention is there anyway to be involved.”

The disappointment of Clare’s season has been more than salved by O’Donnell’s club campaign with Éire Óg that saw them win their first county title for 35 years.

A brilliant year for the Ennis club became a historic one when they then completed the double of senior hurling and football titles last weekend. The club and the town has been buzzing ever since.

“It's incredible,” says O’Donnell. “I think the young lads are running out of flares or maybe the country's running out of flares based on the amount of them they've pulled out. But, yeah, it's been an incredible couple of weeks.

“It's totally stuff of dreams. The number of players who did the double is in the mid-teens and it's challenging when you're going year after year and they're playing a championship game week after week, so for them to be able to pull that off, it's just phenomenal. It's really, really incredible.

“The club has been unbelievable. There's so many people around the clubhouse at the moment. You can just wander down there and there'll be just swarms of people just around because everybody's enjoying the energy of being there so much.

“So, yeah, it's been a really special time for the club. And it's not lost on people that it's history. It's the second club that exists in Clare right now that have done the double and it's incredible to be part of that piece of history.

“There’s been total outpouring of emotion from not just the players, but everyone around the club. I think a couple of years ago when we lost in the 2022 final, I probably realised how much it meant to people. A lot of old lads were coming up to me in tears. And then it was the same story, just with more positive kind of things to reflect on this year.

“So yeah, the last couple of weeks have been just incredible.”

Éire Óg’s sights now turn to provincial campaigns in both hurling and football, and O’Donnell is relishing the challenge that will bring when they play the Tipperary champions in the Munster semi-final on November 16.

“Yeah, another new experience,” he says. “It's something, to be honest, that was never, ever on my radar. When I'd see teams playing Munster and All-Ireland championships at club level, it was just an abstract concept to me because we were quite far away from really being able to compete in that.

“It's been about trying to refocus for the last couple of weeks. Obviously winning the hurling and winning the football it was a week or two off so we're really just getting back onto the pitch at the moment and trying to clear up some injuries and things like that.

“So it's really now this week. And as Tipp play`this weekend, it'll really get serious, then, of what team we're playing and kind of prepping in earnest. But it's, yeah, it's unreal, it's unreal. It's really special to be able to be in this moment. Obviously, it's a long season, that is one side of it, but it is something that is really exciting to be a part of.”