Even though he will travel to New York for his burgeoning acting career shortly after the All-Ireland club final with Cushendall, Shane McNaughton is pretty clear on which forthcoming experience excites him more.

“Do you know what, it would be (exciting) if I wasn't involved in this," says the experienced Cushendall hurler of his club's impending date with destiny on St Patrick's Day. "It seems like, whatever."

“I was saying to my brother the other day in passing, ‘no matter what you do in your life, it doesn't matter if you went on and did something great in some other field, whenever you experience something like this, playing in an All-Ireland final and you get to share it with the people you have grown up playing with and your best friends and family, nothing will ever top that."

That aside, McNaughton probably does have reason to be excited beyond the All-Ireland final. Having secured a minor role in the upcoming new series of the drama show The Fall, McNaughton's journey to New York is for his part in a play about the 1916 Rising.

“It’s a development involving the Lyric Theatre and they’re still writing it," he said. "There’s nine of them. They don’t actually know which one will be chosen. They’re small ones and they’ll go and perform them for the artistic director and he’ll decide which play is put on.

“I've been acting since I was 16 or so. I was going to go to school to study it in New York but then obviously the minor county hurling took over and that, then I got more involved with hurling and just went straight on playing hurling since then. But it’s something I've been kind of dabbling in.

“With county hurling, it’s all or nothing. It really is. But after I got an operation about two years ago, I got back into the acting because I had about a year to myself so I just started auditioning again and doing a few plays in Belfast.”

McNaughton says it has been quite hard to balance hurling with acting, given the time constraints particular to each craft.

“Even there before Christmas it was a nightmare, because obviously I couldn’t foresee us winning the Ulster Championship and I’d already accepted a part in a play, we were training and rehearsing," he said.

"I didn’t actually realise the rehearsals took up so much of your time.  You were actually juggling that for a few months. It’s just not possible."

For the last few weeks, and for the next few though, McNaughton's focus is on one stage and one performance only - Croke Park on March 17. Cushendall, from the glens of Antrim, finally broke their All-Ireland semi-final hoodoo last month against Galway champions Sarsfields, having previously played, and lost, nine All-Ireland semi-finals.

Shane's father Terence, the current manager of Cushendall, played in seven of those defeats, while Shane played in the other two. With the two having helped to finally make it tenth time lucky, alongside Shane's 18-year-old brother Christy, who is also on the team, Shane is clear on what defeating Na Piarsaigh of Limerick in the March 17 final would mean to the family and to the community in Cushendall.

"I remember saying years ago in an article that the best thing you could ever want would be seeing your father’s face after winning an All-Ireland final or something. Having him involved and my wee brother is on the team too, so having them involved adds to it even more."