*Darragh Bohannon in action for Clare during this year’s Munster final. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLARE’s next football manager will be without one of the county’s key players for 2025.
Midfielder Darragh Bohannon will be unavailable for the Clare cause next season as he prepares to go travelling meaning Mark Fitzgerald’s successor will not be able to call on one of the most experienced members of this year’s panel.
Speaking on The Water Break, The Clare Echo’s podcast, the secondary school teacher confirmed he will not be involved with Clare next season. “It was Mark (Fitzgerald) I thought I was going to be telling but I will be going travelling next year so it will be a year out from Clare next year but the plan is to go back again the following year, I want to see a bit of the world while I’m still young enough, I’ve a brother and sister in Australia that are out there seven years so I must get out and see them and a few more bits of the world too”.
Twenty five year old Bohannon first joined the county senior football panel at the age of seventeen in the summer of 2016, he linked up with Colm Collins’ squad alongside Joe McGann and Jonah Culligan who were recruited fresh from Clare’s exit to Waterford in the Munster minor semi-final that year.
He made his senior championship debut the following year, coming on as a substitute when Clare defeated Laois in the qualifiers. A first start in the senior championship arrived in May 2019 when he partnered Gary Brennan in the middle of the park for Clare’s 0-9 0-8 Munster quarter-final win over Waterford.
Darragh was due to depart the county panel in 2020 with plans to spend the summer in San Francisco but the onset of COVID-19 meant he traversing Shaughnessy’s Cross rather than visiting Mt Davidson Cross.
However it was Bohannon’s work in strengthening his physical aspect of his game during the pandemic that led to him forcing his way into a regular starting role, a difficult task considering the midfield pairing at the time was Gary Brennan and Cathal O’Connor.
Injury sidelined Darragh for Clare’s entire Allianz National Football League run this year but he bounced back to play a central role in their 2-20 1-9 Munster semi-final win over Waterford and seven point provincial final loss to Kerry. In the All-Ireland series he was midfield alongside Brian McNamara for Clare’s two point defeat to Cork and picked up a red card in the 3-15 0-10 loss to Tyrone which had him suspended for their final outing with Donegal.
Shannon Gaels’ Darragh praised the efforts of Mark Fitzgerald during his one year term as Clare senior football manager. “There isn’t enough praise that can be given to Colm Collins and what he did, Mark (Fitzgerald) was always going to have a difficult task to follow up from Colm.
“What I found very good about Mark was he was a very good player’s man, he was very approachable, Mark would listen to any player that wanted to speak to him or any player’s input and what they thought might work against an opposition, he gained immense respect from that, he was very good to players throughout the year if they couldn’t make a training for whatever reason, he was very understanding and players bought into him, he was a good motivator and he was able to back it up, in a lot of games he called what we needed to do to win and it came true, he picked out players we needed to nail down and mark, everything he did was on the mark so when you’re sound to fellas, respectful to everyone and listen to players’ input and you’re also getting your tactics and matchups right you can’t go too far wrong”.
