By John Harrington

When the Cúchulainn an Ghleanna coaches arranged their first training session of the year last Monday week, they weren’t quite sure what to expect after a year of inactivity due to Covid-19.

Formed in December 2016 and based in the football heartland of the Clogher Valley in Tyrone, Cúchulainn an Ghleanna are a juvenile hurling and camogie club who draw their players from villages like Ballygawley, Augher, Clogher, Aghaloo, Aughnacloy, and Killeeshil.

They made steady progress in their first three years of existence, but last year pulled the shutters down on the enterprise when Covid-19 hit.

With no facilities of their own and a number of their coaches in the vulnerable bracket, it just wasn’t feasible to play through the pandemic.

It requires a lot of nurture to successfully grow hurling and camogie in parts of the country where there’s little or no history of the game being played, so the fear was that a year of inactivity would see what was already planted wither away.

So, as they set up their first training session of the season on the council pitch they rent, club chairman Cathal McGarry and his predecessor in the role, Declan Bogue, were chatting and reckoned that if they could even get six or seven children to come out that evening it would be a success.

60 children came that first Monday night, and then last Monday the numbers had swelled further to 75. Hurling and camogie clearly have found some fertile soil in the Clogher Valley.

“It was great to see,” McGarry told GAA.ie. “Where we're located is a football heartland, not exactly hurling country, so it's great to see the interest.

“I'm paraphrasing a club-man of my own at home in Fermanagh when he said that nobody was ever born hating hurling. It's all about giving them the opportunity to play the game.

“Our club ethos is to give every child living in this area an opportunity to play camogie and hurling. Anyone who loves it will stay with us. If they don't, then so be it, but the numbers that keep coming back suggest that most of them do and that's what we want to see.”

As McGarry alludes to, he’s a Fermanagh man. If the name rings a bell, it’s because he and his four brothers Brendan, Declan, JP, and Kevin have all hurled for the Fermanagh county team.

What you often find is that the seeds of hurling and camogie are carried around the country by blow-ins who settled down in football areas, and that’s been the case too for Cúchulainn an Ghleanna.

“We've a Clare man, a Clare woman, two Fermanagh men, two Derry women, and a couple of local people as well who have really bought into it,” says McGarry.

“It just shows you that you don't necessarily need to be from what is perceived as the hurling heartland to love the game, it's just about having the opportunity to play it. Because once you do, you can't help but love it.

“And then if you want to grow the game, you have to be passionate about it, you have to love it. It helps too if you realise why you love it.

“I grew up with the game, I grew up with four brothers playing alongside me. My father is a Loughiel man which is probably where the spark started.

“When we didn't play last year because of Covid we all really missed it and we realised just how much it means to us, this game, this club, and how we have a great thing going here.

“We've come out of the traps flying this year since we got the go-ahead. You don't know what you have until it's gone sometimes, and we're definitely hitting the ground running now to make up for the time we lost last year.”

Football will always be a big draw in this part of Tyrone, but McGarry sees no reason why hurling and camogie can’t also become a vibrant element of the Gaelic Games culture.

A generation of children in the area have now been actively playing hurling and camogie since 2017 and the hope is to build further on those increasingly solid foundations.

“Our U-12s and U-13s are the flagship team for our club,” says McGarry. “That might sound a strange thing to say, but they are. Hurling and camogie has become the norm for them. 

“We're seeing their younger siblings coming through now as well and they're seeing hurling being played at home which then encourages them to play as well.

“Our plan is to normalise hurling in this area. When I grew up I couldn't step out the back-door without running past hurls. So you'd take one in your hand and go for a few pucks outside. 

“That's the sort of culture I'd love to develop here. Just normalise the game so people don't see it as something unusual or different and don't fear it. It's simply just a part of their life.” 

Talk to anyone who has ever been involved in the very significant endeavour of setting up a hurling/camogie club from scratch in a county with little tradition of the game, and they’ll tell you that the biggest challenge is player retention as you advance up through the age-grades.

Cúchulainn an Ghleanna have already discovered that for themselves, and are in the process of developing plans they hope will help better pave the player pathway going forward.

“We have found that when they get to get to the age of 15/16 that they start to take football very seriously here be it at school level or club level,” says McGarry.

“I wouldn't say that people are being told to choose one or the other, but it becomes more difficult to play both if you have football training two or three times a week as well as matches. You then have parents making a decision that their child has enough on their plate with the football. 

“So, yeah, it's very tough to continue developing young players up through the age grades as they get older. 

“What we intend to do is to get a senior team together in the near future that will be made up of those coaching the kids and anyone in the area who is interested, and then that will give the 15, 16, and 17 year olds something to aspire to. 

“We're very much in a commuter belt area here so we're definitely going to get more blow-ins like myself coming to the area so I definitely think there is sufficient interest to have a senior hurling team here. 

“I hope so anyway. I'm 33 years old now and I would love to pull our club jersey on myself.”

The story of hurling outside of the traditional counties is that it is usually kept alive by almost random clusters of small ball zealots.

Starting a hurling/camogie club from scratch in a football heartland is the most difficult task of all, but it sounds like all involved with Cúchulainn an Ghleanna are happy to roll up their sleeves and do whatever needs to be done in the coming years.

“We know it doesn't happen overnight,” says McGarry. “There is a massive amount of work that needs to be done. Blood, sweat, and tears goes into it behind the scenes.

“I'm a father of a three-year old and a one-year old and I'm looking at them thinking that I want these guys coming into an established hurling club.

“That's a wee while away, but there will be great pride when we get to the stage where we have second-generation hurlers in our club.

“I look forward to the day we have a long-term established club getting big numbers out at all age-grades.”

More power to them.