*St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield manager, Donagh Vaughan. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
BEATEN CLARE SFC finalists St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield will return with the same management for 2026 in their bid to reach the summit of club football in Clare.
Donagh Vaughan is set for a fifth season at the helm with The Parish who produced their greatest run in thirteen years to reach the county final losing out to Éire Óg.
Vaughan who guided St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield to win the U21A football championship in 2024 has always been forthright in his view that their senior side is capable of lifting the Jack Daly.
They came close to doing just that in 2025, they defeated both Kilmurry Ibrickane and Cratloe in the knockout stages to set up a derby final with Éire Óg. It followed defeats to both Éire Óg and Cratloe in the group stages with a draw against Kildysart enough to secure them one of the three qualification spots on offer from Group 1.
With forty two minutes played in the county final, Doora/Barefield held a four point advantage but they conceded 1-8 from here to the finish and failed to score for the remainder of the game to ensure Éire Óg would complete a historic senior championship double.
Former O’Currys footballer Eoin Troy will return for his third season as coach of the Doora/Barefield senior side. The Doonaha native who won an Irish College scholarship in 1999 is regarded as one of the up and coming coaches in the county.
Back for his second year involved with the club is Kilmurry Ibrickane stalwart Michael O’Dwyer who as recently as the 2024 championship was lining out in the Clare SFC. He won a total of nine Clare SFC medals with the Bricks.
Declan Malone who represented Doora/Barefield until the age of thirty seven will also be back for his second season with the senior side, serving as a selector. Both he and Troy are married to the Keane sisters. Malone was one of the only links between the 2012 and 2025 teams that both contested the Clare SFC finals for St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield.
A new addition to their management for 2026 is S&C coach Victor O’Riordan who succeeds Eimhin Hennessy. The Quin native is the founder of VR Fitness located. He will also continue to work with Éire Óg’s senior footballers, he has been involved since their breakthrough success of 2021 and their subsequent wins in 2022, 2023 and 2025.
Doora/Barefield’s strong run has resulted in the addition of James Curran, Michael Nash and Tom Curran to the provisional Clare senior football panel where they join Joe Rafferty and Fionn Kelleher.
