*Éire Óg’s Mark McInerney. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
OFF THE back of his best year in saffron and blue, Mark McInerney is leading the charge with the red and white of Éire Óg as they look to move ahead of Kilrush Shamrocks on the Clare SFC roll of honour.
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Both the Ennis club and Kilrush Shamrocks have won twenty one senior championships, the Éire Óg successes also include the wins of Ennis Dalcassians and Ennis Faughs.
Mark’s father Francis won seven Clare SFC titles with Doonbeg and in an interview with The Clare Echo after winning his first senior championship in 2021, the then twenty year old remarked, “If we can build on this for the next ten years or so and keep everyone together hopefully we could make a Doonbeg-esque dynasty or something like that, it is probably wishful thinking but we’ve a serious team with a mixture of leadership, youth, athleticism and the lads at the back are unbelievable”.
He has added two senior championship medals in the intervening period but said he is not ticking them off year by year as he moves closer to his father’s tally. “I’m under halfway there, that is not something I’d be thinking about alright, I’d be thinking about winning the game on the day and whenever I finish we’ll tot them up then”. On Sunday is also on course to be named as the MDMyClubShop.ie / The Clare Echo top scorer.
Clare football tends to have a dominant side in each era whether it was Kilrush in the 1980s, Doonbeg in the 1990s, Kilmurry Ibrickane in the 2000s and into the 2010s where they were joined by St Joseph’s Miltown and Cratloe. The 2020s has been the Éire Óg era. “We’re lucky enough to have a strong team with Éire Óg, we’ve shown that over the last couple of years, we’ve been lucky enough to win three county championships, while we have the players we have we want to give it everything to win the county final”.
It has been a busy time for Mark who last Wednesday commenced his studies at the University of Galway for a PhD on cancer research, “I’m a bit of a newbie,” he explained. “In school, biology was probably my biggest interest and then I did a science degree in Galway which led to a masters in science which led into this PhD, it is interesting stuff. I’m just getting settled in, I’ve been told there isn’t too much work in the first few months. Accommodation up there is a bit of a nightmare at the moment, a few of us are driving up and down but I’m looking for a house”.
Working hours are flexible for the research, he noted. “It is your own project that you are driving, you can come in early in the morning or stay late in the evening, you can make up your hours from there. From what I’ve been told they are fairly accommodating. I know Cillian Brennan did a PhD too and he was saying the same, he was coming down from Dublin and doing loads of travelling so they must have been accommodating, I hope they get the same thing”.
Ironically two of Éire Óg’s most talented forwards that have also represented their county have been PhD students with Shane O’Donnell completing his in microbiology at University College Cork in 2021. “When you say it out loud I hear it, Shane has been a hero for everyone in the club since I was young, he has been a role model, he has the four years done, I’ve a long way to go,” Mark noted.
In a recent interview with The Clare Echo, O’Donnell spoke about his desire to fly to the moon at some stage, McInerney has no such plans on his radar, “That is a bit of a stretch for me, I’m at the start of my career, maybe a bit of travelling when I get the chance but nothing like the moon”.
When Shane Daniels succeeded Paul Madden as Éire Óg manager, the stall was set of returning to the county final for the fourth time in five years. “That is what we set out for at the start of the year, make the big day, we’re going to be ready for road, we’ll be prepared, we’ll give it everything and we want to win the championship”.
Unbeaten and back in the county final, Éire Óg have still not set the world alight. “We haven’t played our best stuff for the full sixty minutes, in some games we’ve had spells where we haven’t been where we want to be but at other times pretty much in every game I feel we’ve had our purple patches and taken advantage of it. We’re looking to extend the purple patch the next day and be playing our best stuff for the whole sixty minutes”.
Having played soccer alongside Tom McDonald, Eoghan Thynne, Cian McDonough, Tom O’Brien and Paddy Bugler there is a strong familiarity for Mark with Doora/Barefield’s players, many of whom he would have went to St Flannan’s College with.
Their showdown is a repeat of this year’s Cusack Cup final which was Mark’s first game with the club and required extra time for the Townies to come out on top. “In the Cusack Cup final they probably deserved to win the game, we were very lucky to scrape the extra time in the end and we just pulled away then. We knew from then that Doora/Barefield are a strong team, they have got very good players, a few boys in the county set-up, a lot of young lads coming through so we always knew they would be there or thereabouts but we’ll be ready for them, we’ll always said that whether it was Cratloe or Doora/Barefield that we’d be ready for them”.
Coming into the club campaign off the back of his best year with Clare’s seniors where he became a first-choice corner forward for Peter Keane’s side, Mark was has been more confident. “It was good, I always gave everything I could with Clare for the last few years, I had one of my best years and that helps with confidence to bring that over to the club scene, I feel like I’ve continued on, the team we have in Éire Óg helps with that, it is almost like a county set-up at times, it is pretty seamless to go from one to the other, training has massive competition for places even when it is a hurling week”.
Early in the National Football League he was listed as a sub-goalkeeper for Clare and with Daniels retiring, there was a risk he could end up between the posts for Éire Óg, “I don’t know if you remember we had a challenge match at one stage during the year and I was in goals for Éire Óg, I won’t say thank God that ended pretty quickly but I’m delighted to be back wearing number fifteen, I think Cian Howard is doing a pretty good job, he has come in and is doing very well for us, for a young lad to be starting on a team like Éire Óg he has taken it in his stride”.
Twenty four year old Mark said the experience of getting to finals makes the preparation for the big day much easier. “You’re used to the atmosphere, the pre-match build-up, the parade and stuff, that is what we’re building on and drawing from to make sure we’re ready for the game”.
Studies and life in general helps to distract from big games, he finds. “Your other life helps as well, for the past few years in college and doing the masters takes up your time during the week. When training is on you give everything for that, it is obviously hard to keep football in the back of your mind but I find if you can compartmentalise stuff that helps. When you’re spending so much time with the lads especially lads on the Clare panel, I grew up with Manus my whole life, Ronan Lanigan, Ikem we get fairly close when you’re with them all the time so we do unwind together and it builds more of a team spirit, it is just natural and there’s no thinking behind it”.
