*Clare minor defender, Niall Doyle. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
EVERYTHING the Clare minors have done in 2025 has been “in honour” of Joe Slattery according to defender Niall Doyle.
Corofin’s Slattery would likely have been part of the Clare squad preparing for Saturday’s All-Ireland final had he not suffered a life-changing injury while training with Corofin/Ruan last November.
Long before their first championship outing when manager Ger O’Connell dedicated the win to Joe, he has been ever-present in their thoughts with the panel wearing red and white wristbands in a silent yet loud symbol to show Slattery’s importance to the group.
Niall said that Joe has been an inspiration to the entire panel. “Joe Slattery is massive to us, all of the lads are wearing the wristbands for him, we do everything for Joe, we stay in contact with him before and after games, in honour of him we play our best.
“We’d still be close enough, he was on the hurling and football squads up along like myself, he’s a quite fella but a savage hurler and footballer, he would definitely have been involved here so it’s very upsetting, we do everything for him,” he told The Clare Echo.
Joe’s story has made the group of seventeen and sixteen year olds appreciate the opportunity of getting to play sport and the honour of representing their county. “When you have the facilities here like Cusack Park and getting to train here before the big games, you have to thank the County Board but you appreciate it every day and you can’t take these things for granted”.
At the beginning of the year, Clare would not have been earmarked as All-Ireland finalists but Niall felt it was a realistic target. “At the start of the year we had it in our minds that it would be the goal but we take every game step by step, we had a few setbacks but it’s how we bounce back from them and that’s how we really got better in every game, bouncing back from the setbacks and that’s why we’ve made it to an All-Ireland final”.
Defeats to Cork and Waterford jumped out as the on-the-field setbacks for the Éire Óg clubman. “We lost to Cork in round two, we bounced back and beat Limerick, we lost to Waterford so we didn’t get to play in a Munster final but we came back and beat Dublin after that”.
From the Lahinch Rd in Ennis, Niall’s parents Thomas and Niamh have got involved in Éire Óg since relocating from Mayo almost two decades ago. “They’re actually both from Mayo, they’re from Kiltimagh which wouldn’t be a hurling stronghold but they have grown into it, they are getting more and more involved, they’d be heavily involved with Éire Óg, Dad would be helping out with certain teams, they are coming into it and on the hurling side they are coming into it”.
Hints of a Kiltimagh accent can be heard when Niall speaks but such a view is not held by his Mayo relations. “People have said that I still have the accent but whenever I go up there they say I’ve taken up the Clare accent, I think I’ve a bit of a Kiltimagh accent in me. I was born here, my brother was born in Mayo and they moved down he was two”.
A student in Rice College, Niall moved from full-back to corner-back when returning to the side following an injury. “After the injury I came back in and I was corner back so I’m grateful to be still playing, you do your job for the team and what has to be done, I’m grateful to be still playing after a setback”.
He continued, “I couldn’t put a name on it, I did something to the nerve in or around my knee, osteocondroma is what I had and it was affecting the nerve. It was a random injury but it settled after two weeks so I missed two games, the Limerick and Waterford one but it settled thankfully, I went back training as soon as possible and now we’re here in an All-Ireland final”.
Given how he spoke with such affection for Joe, it comes as no surprise that the Clare panel is a tight-knit and well-bonded group. “Meeting up outside of training would be very important to us, after games we’d all be going to recovery together, we do everything as a panel, if we’re coming to Clare games we’d do it together to really build a bond, the dressing room is great craic, inside there after the game the last day was one of the best days of my life inside there”.
“Getting over the line would be monumental for us, with all the setbacks we’ve been put through it would be savage, even for the county this was our fourth semi-final in four years and this is our second All-Ireland final in three years, to get over the line would be unreal, I can’t put it into words,” the seventeen year old said.
