*St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield captain, Darragh O’Shea. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
BELIEF has been building within St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield having taken down two of Clare’s strongest sides, now they must overcome the best in the county to secure the ultimate honour.
The Clare Echo’s online coverage of the Clare SFC is with thanks to The Shannon Springs Hotel.
Full-back Darragh O’Shea will lead Doora/Barefield into battle for Sunday’s Clare SFC final against neighbours Éire Óg. After eliminating Kilmurry Ibrickane and Cratloe from the title race, The Parish is pumped for a shot at glory and a chance to lift the Jack Daly.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Darragh referred back to their month long build-up ahead of the Kilmurry Ibrickane quarter-final as a defining moment in their campaign. “We were lucky to be in the group where three would qualify, to avoid that play off and get that extra week off we had four weeks from the final group game and it sort of allowed us after the disappointment of losing to Cratloe to switch off for a couple of days, then refocus and focus in on a quarter-final.
“We’d lost four quarter-finals or play-off games up to that point, numerous tight games which we were guilty of not winning, it was really a monkey off the back winning that game especially because we hadn’t beaten the traditionally bigger football sides, many of the games we had won with all due respect to all the other sides like they’re not the traditional big four or five teams in Clare so getting that win over Kilmurry Ibrickane as you saw from the celebrations meant a lot to us”.
O’Shea explained, “That Kilmurry Ibrickane game gave us the belief. Both games were far from the finished article in terms of perfection, we’ve looked back at them and there’s plenty of evidences of where we can improve but it’s nice to know that if the games are tight in those final few minutes that’s in there in us that we can go and do it”.
Also a starting member of the Doora/Barefield senior hurling side, Darragh acknowledged of the dual commitments, “There is no denying that it is tough, it’s been the same since I came up but it is the same for every dual club like Cratloe and Éire Óg, trying to find that balance can be tough but there is a balance that can be found there. People say they don’t complement each other. I disagree, I think they fairly go hand in hand. I know this year for the hurling, things weren’t going great for us and it was nice to be able to detach for a week, I know we struggled in the group for the football but it can be tough to stay in the one camp so it is nice just to be able to change up the scenery every so often, go out and re-engage”.
Securing their senior hurling status on the weekend in between the football quarter-final and semi-final lifted the mood further in the club. “There’s only three or four of us really that are dual players, for us in particular, it was good and then winning breeds winning. So, even the win against Quilty, you’re going into a game the next week with a more positive outlook, you get the win against Corofin, the club needed a win just to boost morale and you can feel it, there’s a nice excitement with three wins on the bounce in three weeks”.
His first year as a member of the senior hurling panel in 2018 saw the club suffer relegation to intermediate so staying in the top tier is vital for the development of their youthful hurling side. “I spent 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 down intermediate, nearly there, semi-finals, finals and you finally get the win in 2022 to take the step up and realise the gulf in class that is there between intermediate and senior hurling like you’re going out there but just the physicality, the speed, the intensity of it so for lads to get that experience and exposure to that early even if they’re not playing but to be in a dressing room that’s involved in games at that intensity, it’s huge and the learning you take from that is second to none. We have young lads, we had eighteen and seventeen year olds starting on our team, they are only going to improve, if you get another couple of years of senior hurling into those lads who knows where they can develop it to”.
When Doora/Barefield won the Clare IFC in 2020, the jump back to senior football wasn’t as big, he felt. “We were only two years in intermediate football so a lot of us had seen or been exposed to senior football before being relegated. We were still a young side that won in 2020, there’s still a core of eight, nine players really there that had played senior football prior so that’s something I suppose that was important to fall back on when we did go back up senior whereas this year you look at it, compared to the hurling, when we were relegated, the lads who say played senior in 2017 and 2018, there’s not many of them left on the team that have played senior this year and that was that’s what I found was beneficial to us, especially in say 2021, our first year of senior football we had a bit of experience to fall back on”.
Based in Cork City as a process engineer, Darragh has lived Leeside for the past seven years between his studies at CIT and now working life, “it’s a great city, I know lots of people down there at this stage so I’m fairly comfortable there”. He did refer to Peter O’Mahoney’s well-documented comments on the condition of the road between Cork and Limerick. “I’m fortunate enough that I train with a club team down there up until championship, they are a dual club too so it’s hurling and football every second week, Aghabullogue out near Macroom, I know a few lads through college”.
Describing the work of a process engineer, O’Shea explained, “My current role is I’m working on a project down below with Cara Partners so in essence we’re relocating a process from a sister site in Germany and trying to transfer all that equipment and apply it to a site down in Cork, that is what I’ve been working on for the last few months and it’ll be an ongoing project anyway for the next couple of years”.
This has been his first year as captain of the senior footballers. With his involvement in the hurling and living in Cork, it could be equated to a remote captaincy for stages of the year. “It can sometimes be tough between being away and being a dual player, you might only see a quarter of it but to be fair we have plenty of great leaders within the dressing room, there’s a group of us that have been together for the last five years, I think we’re all fairly comfortable with each other so I’m fairly confident and I know for a fact just seeing them when you come back from missing a session or two from hurling or being in Cork you can see the standard, you see the intensity, like nothing drops, there’s plenty of leaders there and lads taking ownership of everything on and off the pitch so to be fair I’ve been blessed in that way”.
Both of his parents hail from Kilkenny but Pat and Ruth only met whilst they were both in the Banner County. “The father’s from Kilkenny, so, he wouldn’t have been raised with much big ball exposure. He tries to stay unbiased in his opinions but I’d say hurling is his preference but to me it’s both, I’m a dual player if anyone asks me, I’m not a hurler or a footballer, I’m a dual player. Mam didn’t have much GAA exposure until she met the father, now she doesn’t have much say in anything else. The dinner table now that the sister is gone, the main topic of conversation is hurling and football. She’s adapted”. Pat worked in Roche for close to four decades while Ruth previously had an opticians above Collins Jewellers on O’Connell St in Ennis.
Next week, he turns twenty six but the Barefield defender is focused on getting over Éire Óg, a side which includes Ikem Ugwueru and Darren O’Brien who he played alongside with St Flannan’s College’s Corn Uí Mhúirí side. “It’s a long time since we were inside in Flannan’s but off the pitch at least I get on great with them. Being as closely situated as we are, there’s a rivalry there, there’s no avoiding that but it’s on the pitch, that’s where it’s done so we leave it there and you park it there”.
Past meetings between the clubs are of little consequence to Sunday’s final, he felt. “They’re a good side, there’s no denying that, you could argue that we left both of the games behind us when we brought them to extra time but there’s a big difference between the Cusack Cup final and a county final. I suppose when you go out on the pitch on Sunday that’s the only game that matters, what happened before in other games, what happened last year and what happened the year before is irrelevant really like you hear all the clichés of this and that but that is the reality, like sixty minutes on Sunday to do all the talking”.
As a twelve year old spectator for The Parish’s last senior final, he recalled it as “a dour affair, it wasn’t high scoring I was twelve years of age watching it, I remember the buzz and wearing the Doora/Barefield jersey in school, great excitement, it didn’t dawn on me really at that age and the disappointment probably wasn’t really there but you chat to the lads who played in it like Deccy Malone, Cathal O’Sullivan who is our physio and they will tell you about the regrets they have, learning curves and learnings they took from it. They came up against a quality side in both of those finals, that Kilmurry Ibrickane team competed in an All-Ireland club final”.
Leading the club into a county final is a nice moment, he admitted. “In essence we have leaders all over the place, there’s ten or fifteen lads if I was to go off after two minutes who are capable of doing everything that I’m capable of doing. If you look at the age profile of the team, Conor O’Brien is there thank God I’m the oldest after him, you’re looking for someone who has been around and seen a bit more football but there’s plenty of lads well capable of stepping up and leading on the day”.
