*Banner’s Tom Meehan with captain Eoin Walsh. Photograph: Burren Eye Photography
THAT the Banner are sixty minutes from playing senior football is “monumental” and testament to the gigantic strides made by the Ennis club.
On Saturday they line out in the Clare intermediate football championship (IFC) final for the very first time taking on 2024 winners Wolfe Tones in Cusack Park at 16:00.
Shane Meehan’s name will forever be among the most distinguished associated with the club, his father’s Tom has played a starring role in nurturing the crop of talent that has them on the cusp of reaching the county’s top tier of football.
Tom is a selector with the Banner’s intermediate footballers, having been manager for the previous two seasons. To be within an hour of becoming a senior club is a real dream for the Banner. “From where we were ten years or fifteen years ago, at one stage we were in trouble about fielding an U14 team, to see the massive improvements and the achievements we’ve got, we have players on the Clare senior hurling team, we have players that have won All-Irelands, it is massive. I was down there this evening, we’ve built a new astro-turf, we had a waste piece of ground, we have a fine astro turf built and it is all lit up, the car park was full, I had to go down and pump all the balls, do all the things you have to do. There was a game in the pitch, a full car park and it was a great setting with all the lights lit up and the work being done.
“When someone like yourself says we’re sixty minutes from senior football, it is monumental, it would be huge Saturday evening if we could attain it but we’re fully grounded, we know that no bad team gets to a final so Wolfe Tones will be equally determined, they have been there and have all the pedigree, they have been there before, it will be unique, it is our first final playing in Cusack Park, I know some of the lads have played there but it is going to be a big occasion for the lads, we just have to keep everyone grounded including the management, fingers crossed,” Meehan told The Clare Echo.
For the past five years, he has been involved with the Banner’s intermediates. “We got up to intermediate during the COVID, it was 2021 so I was asked to come along and give a helping out in the backroom so for the last five years I’ve been involved, I managed for the last two years, then we gave it to the great Shane (Mernagh) to take over and run, that is what you do in the Banner, everybody chips in, there’s no airs and graces, you just do what you can. I was helping out, I might not have been the best manager or coach in the world but you can do what you can do, you contribute, it might be small, my brother is above and he does coaching, I’ve another brother coaching in Turloughmore, it seems to be all in the blood but my father never played, he played a small bit”.
Their three seasons at intermediate have shown progress each, beaten by a point to Naomh Eoin in the 2024 quarter-final, they bowed out at the semi-final stage to Cooraclare by a single score, now the focus is to ensure they win at the final hurdle at the first attempt. “We will prepare the lads as best we can. We’re coming off a hurling week, the dual status is part of the club and will always be part of the club, we accept that, anyone coming in coaching knows that they have players for X amount of time, you try transfer knowledge as quick and as fast as you can, it is all about getting over the white line and finish line that is our ultimate goal but if it doesn’t happen it is not the end of the world, we have to focus on how far we’ve got and how quick we’ve got there, it is all about trying to get the lads to play to their maximum potential, if that happens on Saturday evening and the result is positive then we will be delighted, if it doesn’t but they play to their maximum and we get beat by a point or two then best of luck to Wolfe Tones. You think you can cover every base but something will always happen, like the Kilrush game we have beaten them earlier so it is very hard to beat a team twice, that is really tough, we hope that has instilled a belief in the players. We played Killanena in the hurling semi-final on Sunday, they beat us in the first game, our lads did well and put it to them, when there is a positive vibe in the club it transfers and that is what we hope to keep going, we have a hurling final coming up the following weekend so it is a busy time in the Banner”.
A native of Dunmore in Galway, Tom has lived in Ennis since 1991. “I came from Dunmore McHaels, Michael Donnellan country, I was taught by Seán Purcell who had a grasp of football, he taught me when I was in Strawberry Hill NS and then went to Dunmore, I was working in Galway and then I got transferred to Moneypoint, I’m still there, they haven’t sacked me yet,” he quipped.
His wife Angela, another Galwegian made the move down to Clare with him. “A Galway woman, Mountbellew/Moylough, I brought her down with me, the worst thing about that is they had the Kilkenny colours, it used to gall me, they are flying it in the hurling at the moment, they are competing in an intermediate final, it is mostly football up there but hurling is gaining traction, it is near Ballinsaloe and that area. In Dunmore we never had hurling”.
At Moneypoint, he has moved from the floors to become procurement stores manager. “I’m off the floor and done with night shifts, that was a help because I’ve seen guys coaching on night shifts and it is a killer, you’re there one day and not the next, you really have to have a rapport with the kids”.
Reflecting on his own playing career, Tom stated, “I did a few trials with Galway but only got to the last fifty, nothing spectacular, we won an U21 club championship in 1986 that was my biggest claim to fame, I just remember the celebrations, I used to play corner forward and full forward, I wasn’t as good as Shane for nipping in and nipping out, I had no hurling, never played or picked up a hurley until I came to Clare”.
It took until the arrival of his three children, Darren, Shane and Ciara for an involvement in the GAA to be rekindled. “I drifted away from the GAA when I came down here, I played a bit of soccer with Moneypoint, a guy came knocking at my door called Mick O’Mahony, he was a Garda in town, he said there is an urban board in the town and asked if my young lad would like to play, that was 2005 so Darren the eldest lad starting playing with them, naturally I started helping out and I’m still here twenty years later trying to get out of it. Initially I took a break when we moved here, I didn’t know any clubs in town so I took a break, I used to go home a lot, we got married, had the kids and were up and down to Galway a bit so I just drifted away and didn’t get a grasp of it until the young lads came along”.
Now the GAA has a stronger grip on his life than ever before. “There isn’t a Sunday that goes by that either Shane, Darren or Ciara are involved in something, the washing machine is always going and the line is always full, it has been that way since they were small, you wouldn’t fill your day any other way than going to a match or doing something with the Banner. The Banner really kicked off in 2012, the urban board closed up and we went our separate ways, we teamed up with the Banner because it was close by, we got a great chance to build the club from the roots up. Through the Banner is a lot of lads from out of town, there is a camaraderie of Cork, Carlow, Galway, Tipperary, Limerick, you have everybody, during an All-Ireland there is always great slagging because someone is always looking for tickets”.
Tom’s coaching journey began with the Banner U6s, moving all the way to minor with his sons Darren and Shane. “When Shane came along and he started being noticed by other people we figured that our coaching must be of a certain standard if we can produce players that are of that quality, we knew then we weren’t doing a half bad job, I always figured that the bigger football and hurling clubs were doing a better job or that was what I thought in my head when we went up against them in blitzes. Shane’s age-group was the first for the Banner to be playing in A, we never won anything but we wanted the players to play to the highest standard that they could play competitively, it was B in hurling and A in football playing the likes of Doora/Barefield, Ennistymon who had massive picks but we kept going and plugging away. I felt rather than dropping down a division and winning a trophy for the sake of it, be competitive at the age you can and be as high up you can, that has been the ethos of the club thus far, we tend not to drop down and push the guys on and maintain the high standards what we can”.
Visits from former national hurling co-ordinator, Paudie Butler were strong in shaping Tom’s coaching philosophy. “What we did very early on was we dual-coached, so basically we had hurling coaches who went off and got football tickets, I went off and got the hurling tickets, we had Paudie Butler giving coaching sessions and I’ll never forget he was showing us how to control a ball, he said ‘don’t ever be afraid of showing a drill, get the best player on the team to do the drill for you in front of the kids and you’re off the hook, show him what you need done and he will do it, they much prefer looking at a child doing it rather than an adult’. I thought they were some of the best tips I got, so we got Áine Donegan, that is another claim to fame I coached her, Áine and Shane used to take turns showing the drill and in the blitzes Áine would want to play midfield with Shane or there would be a hoo-haw. That is a small claim to fame”.
Nerves were evident in Banner’s semi-final win over Kilrush Shamrocks, he acknowledged. “Kilrush are steeped in history, they weren’t going to come into a semi-final without a plan, there was a certain element of nervousness, every team has to work that through and that is what we were so delighted with. It started off and didn’t go too well but there is a new doggedness creeping into the team, you only get that through going to the well, pushing the lads but nervousness let’s hope it doesn’t start again on Saturday evening, we will have nerves and they are good but we have to manage them, channel them positively but that is me sitting down saying that, I might not be saying that in Cusack Park at half three”.
Huge strides have been made by the Banner with Shane featuring in Clare’s All-Ireland SHC win of 2024, Ronan Kilroy picking up All-Ireland and Munster U20 medals in 2026, the duo serving as the first pair of club representatives to play senior hurling for Clare.
Given how well they have fared in this year’s Clare IFC, county call-ups from Paul Madden are imminent. “It is in the lap of the Gods but all we can do is bring the players to play as good a quality football as they can. We don’t know what will happen, it is great to have the county looking at you and to have players being talked about but at the end of the day, a club is all about the grassroots and coming back. In fairness to Ronan and Shane not just because he is my lad, they come back and give a hand, if it is not coaching it is talking to a group of players, it is all about keeping everybody grounded, no matter if you have ten, twenty or one on the county team, as long as they come back to the county and are grounded and they know where they started whether it is U6 or U10, to transfer the knowledge back and that is what we do with the coaching, it is very hard to get lads coaching, to keep them interested, we’ve said it to the older players that it is time to help out, give a dig out with the U8s or U10s if you’re free, it is a community that we’re trying to build togetherness in and move forward. Whatever happens happens, if there are players called up then that is brilliant, if there isn’t it won’t be the end of the world, you just get on with the next game because there is always something to be done and grass to be cut”.
As a proud football man, would Tom have a greater desire to see his son Shane play the big ball for Clare as opposed to remaining on Brian Lohan’s hurling panel is the tricky question thrown his way. “Either which way it is up to himself and whatever he wants, it didn’t matter to me either code. Once I started with the hurling I’ve begin to love it as much as the football, I always followed Galway hurling, I was at all the All-Irelands, my father brought me in 1980, hurling and football there is no question between either of them, I don’t mind as long as he is happy. I watch rugby, soccer, two flies crawling up a tree, they’re all into this American football now so even I’m watching American football and I’m starting to get into it, as long as the kids and players are happy then I am happy”.
