*James Hanrahan.
FORMER CLARE captain, James Hanrahan has joined Peter Keane’s management.
Hanrahan who lined out in three Munster finals for the Clare senior footballers including the famous win of 1992 has been added to Keane’s management ticket. He will serve as goalkeeper coach and it is understood that he will also be acting as a selector on the new-look management.
It is James’ third time involved with the county senior footballers. He previously worked as goalkeeper coach under Frank Doherty in 2008 and Colm Collins where he was succeeded by Declan O’Keeffe. Barry Ryan was goalkeeper coach for Mark Fitzgerald’s season as Clare manager in 2024.
As previously first reported by The Clare Echo, Keane’s Clare management will include Eoin Curtin of St Joseph’s Miltown, former Roscommon coach Peter Tormey and Shane O’Rourke as the strength and conditioning coach.
Miltown Malbay native Christy Killeen who has been living in Kerry since the 1970s has joined Keane’s set-up as liaison officer. He has been involved with underage Kerry teams and previously worked with both Jack O’Connor and Keane when they were in charge of Kerry’s minor footballers.
Among Hanrahan’s contributions in the 2008 campaign was to organise for then Munster and Ireland prop Marcus Horan to address the county footballers at training in advance of their 0-9 0-7 Munster SFC quarter-final win over Waterford.
At club level, James is a former manager of the Éire Óg senior footballers and was in charge when they contested the 2014 Clare SFC final losing out to the Colm Collins managed Cratloe. He has also been over Limerick clubs Na Piarsaigh and St Patrick’s.
He also managed the Clare U21 footballers in 2010 when their players included Seán Collins, Liam Markham, Dean Ryan and Shane Brennan.
Along with his Munster SFC medal from 1992, James collected Clare SFC titles in 1994 and 2000.
Over a decade ago, before the appointment of Micheál McDermott’s successor which turned out to be Colm Collins, James called for the county manager to be given the opportunity to oversee the development of a specific style of football for all county teams in Clare from U16 to senior to ensure a cohesive style of play was understood by all players and managements.
“After three years he’d have a system in place where everybody is playing the same type of football and everybody knows that when you come into a minor team you’re going to be playing this way, it should be the same way when you come into an U21 or senior team,” he stated.
