*Oran Cahill in action for Eire Óg. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
ORAN CAHILL is the youngest member of the Éire Óg starting fifteen, this Sunday is county final day but it is also his twenty first birthday.
Preparing for his second senior football final with Éire Óg is taking precedent over planning any special celebrations for the milestone birthday for Cahill but capturing Jack Daly and a second championship medal would make the day. “It would be a nice present if we won on Sunday, hopefully it all goes well. It would be lovely if we found a way to bring the Cup back here and up to the club, it would be class”.
There’s no special request from Oran on the type of birthday cake to be delivered to the Clubhouse. “I don’t want any cake once there’s drinks there, that is the main thing, once Petey has the bar going, it all depends on whether we win or lose but we know we’ve a serious challenge ahead,” he commented.
Defender Manus Doherty is two years older than Oran and is the closest in age to him while among the substitutes Jarlath Collins is the same age and Luke Pyne is two years younger. His age doesn’t stop Oran from dishing out the instructions to older colleagues if needs be. “Maybe at the start in my first year I wouldn’t have been too involved but when you’re playing the hurling and football you get to know lads very well so with Fitz and Russ, I’d be good friends with them now, you wouldn’t dare say a thing to them at the start but now you’d talk away and give advice, it is all about getting confidence and once you are confident you can talk to everyone, we have a motto that nobody is bigger than anybody else in the group, whether it’s number thirty six or number six, whoever says it is taken on board and not taken in a bad way”.
He focused solely on hurling when Éire Óg won a first senior football championship in fifteen years back in 2021 but Cahill was wing forward on the side which retained the title beating Ennistymon in the 2022 decider.
Situated in the engine room at wing forward, Oran admitted to The Clare Echo, “I’m not really the most skilful or best footballer, going up and down the field is my main asset, it is nice to get the start so I can’t really complain and I’m buzzing for two weeks. It is constant work, it is up and down the field, tracking runners, getting off shoulders and feeding the shooters, it is constant work around that middle third, covering ground all game and making sure there is no runner coming through, that is the main part of the job as a running half-forward”. This role is not the most glamorous gig but “someone has to do it, I’m one of them. There’s one or two of us there, it’s not too bad and I enjoy it”.
On the hurling field, there’s more finesse required to his role at centre back with the Éire Óg seniors. “The hurling has a bit more pressure and there’s more expected of you and I enjoy that too because I love playing hurling, I love going up and down the field, striking ball and all that stuff but it is very different to my football role”.
He has been part of county squads at minor, U20 and senior with hurling but has not donned a Clare jersey on the football front but hasn’t ruled out doing so in the future, “the door is always open but I don’t know, maybe one day, I wouldn’t say no or say yes, we’d have to see but it would depend on college and work”.
College is “fairly full on at the moment,” he pointed out, he is in fourth year at the University of Limerick and is close to the finish line of obtaining a degree in chemical engineering. “I haven’t decided if I’m going to do a masters in project management or if I’ll go straight go into work, I might think about going travelling next year and go to New York and play a bit of hurling, we’ll see but there’s nothing concrete yet,” he said on future plans.
From what he has experienced of inter-county squads, Oran said senior club is now reaching that level. “I suppose most senior clubs now would be on par, you’re training two or three times a week, in the gym twice a week and more in the off-season, it is getting very similar to inter-county, you’d be training three times a week with Clare and gym twice, with this we’re training three times a week and maybe gym once, there is a high standard here but you need that if you want to keep going and keep progressing each year, we didn’t do enough last year so we had to reset and get the standards back”.
Sunday will be their second clash with Kilmurry Ibrickane in this year’s championship. “We had a tough enough group, to start off with Quilty was a tough game and we just about got over the line, we had to play every game that was in front of us after that, we’ve been in good form at the moment but it will be a lot different the next day compared with previous games I feel especially with the rivalry that is there and they are getting into good form at the moment so it will be a tough battle”.
A two point defeat to Inagh/Kilnamona in the middle of September saw Éire Ógs hurlers eliminated in the quarter-finals. “It was very disappointing to lose the hurling but it is nearly a good thing that we can switch off straight away and go back into football training the Tuesday before the Lissycasey game, ever since then it has been football, football, football so our mind is taken off it and it will probably hit us a bit later come the winter when the football is over and we’ll realise that maybe we left the hurling behind us. It is good to have an off switch because it takes a bit of the pain out of it,” he reflected.
Paul Madden’s footballers are competing in their third final in four seasons while the hurlers have reached the senior final twice this millennium. “The panels are very even, we’ve eight or nine lads playing hurling and football, the resources on both are even enough, we’re fortunate that the football is very strong with a lot of lads on Clare teams and a good underage in previous years who all came through at once, on the hurling side we had a lot of young lads come through this year, give them another few years and we’ll have a new crop of players,” Oran said.
Ennis and Éire Óg has a “serious” county final buzz, he said. “This week will be a low calm week but the buzz around training and lads hopping off each other is great, there’s a lot of stuff which goes on beforehand like the Tulla Pipe Band but it is all about playing the sixty minutes, that is the main thing and try get over the line, the buzz is class though”.
Éire Óg’s Junior A hurlers are in semi-final action this Saturday, their game was one of the casualties due to Storm Ashley. Part of their management team is Oran’s father, Gerry. There will be no Cahill father and son double act with any club team in the near future, Oran stressed. “We always kept to a rule that he would stay away because I wouldn’t be able to manage, he is probably my biggest supporter but he never coached me in the hurling, I don’t think he ever will, hopefully”.
Back in May 2023 for the official opening of PPG and Universal Display Corporation (UDC) in Shannon, Gerry who is the plant manager of PPG acted as master of ceremonies with speakers at the event remarking following his performance as MC that he could be a suitable candidate for the then vacancy as presenter of The Sunday Game. “Oh Jesus! Don’t say that to him, his head would be massive,” remarked Oran when the comments were relayed to him. “He can talk the talk alright, he’s get to a level where he is used to talking but Jesus I’d never put him on The Sunday Game, keep him as far away from that as possible”. An appearance on The Water Break though is something Oran would sanction.
With Éire Óg’s footballers egos are left at the door, a policy implemented by Madden and his management. Huge praise is reserved for the panel from Oran, “A lot of the credit is due to the lads that are training with us, I know they are playing junior but they train with us all year round, without them especially during the league we would be lost, some of the lads are excellent like the shift they put in and they might never see a minute of game time, a lot of it is us showing our gratitude to them and we are thankful to them for sticking at it every year and driving our standards, we’ve a great panel”.
Competition for places has resulted in members of the Clare football squad not getting a starting berth, “That’s just the way it has fallen, it all depends on how you are going in training, some lads are going well and if it means an inter-county lad on the bench then that’s the way it is, there is no egos or bad feelings, our bench is probably our strongest asset so they know if they get on that they have a job to finish the game and drive it on for us, everyone is the same whether you start or come on”.
Sunday’s dream scenario for Oran is to have Jack Daly resting in the Clubhouse in Clonroadmore to make it a twenty first birthday to remember.
