*Shane O’Donnell in action for Clare. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
TWO-TIME All-Ireland winner Shane O’Donnell has said retirements from the Clare camp are unlikely given the manner in which the county’s defence of the All-Ireland title panned out.
As has been speculated locally, there is almost an unsaid commitment within the Clare senior hurling panel that the more experienced cohort are willing to give the county cause another year due to the frustration felt at how their championship campaign unfolded in 2025.
All-Ireland champions Clare drew their opening round of the Munster championship before successive defeats to Waterford and Tipperary ensured they would not advance from the province, their final outing of the year saw them defeat Limerick by five points in TUS Gaelic Grounds on May 25th.
Speaking at the launch of Bord Gáis Energy’s new solar campaign, Shane outlined that exits from the panel are unlikely but cautioned that one departure over the next two seasons could open the flood gates.
On his own circumstance, Shane said no decision on his Clare future would be made for a number of months. “Obviously, I’ve thought about it. I had talked about this year being my last year”. He continued, “I’m a bit more careful about how I phrase this. I think a number of us had genuinely intended for this to be the last year. With how disappointing it ended, it makes it very difficult to hang up the boots.
“I don’t know, to be honest. It depends on a number of factors. Not least whether other players are staying or going. It definitely will be up in the air until the end of this year. When other players make that decision, then we’ll see,” the thirty one year said.
According to the Ennis native, another of the experienced brigade, Tulla’s David McInerney is set to stay with the county cause for another year at least. McInerney is expected to be travelling over the summer months but will be refreshed to go again with Clare in 2026.
O’Donnell recalled an exchange with McInerney prior to their final outing of the year. “There’s no way we’re not going to go again. But we’ll see what happens, essentially. When push came to shove, I remember the week of our game against Limerick – obviously we were out at this stage and the Tuesday training had just wrapped up. I turned to Davy Mc (Inerney) and just said, ‘That’s our last Tuesday session ever’. I was under the impression he was going to be leaving. He just turned to me and was like, ‘no’ basically. I think when it comes down to it, it becomes very difficult to actually take that step away”.
A shoulder injury meant Shane only featured for the county twice in this year’s championship. In January, he was told to expect to be out of action for six months but he lifted the entire grounds of Cusack Park on May 10th when replacing Shane Meehan on forty four minutes. “The noise when I came on, it was a great memory, but looking back on it, it’s obviously tarnished with the result of the game. If anything, I actually just think about that result and think that it would have been one of the great days of my career, coming back and everything and getting back on the pitch, if we’d won. But now I don’t want to think about it, because we didn’t win. And it essentially torpedoed our campaign,” he recalled.
He continued, “Even with that information I had in late January, I would have done the same thing. There was no way I could have played so it was basically, it was probably a retirement decision then. Would I retire with this injury or would I get it done and try to chase back? So that decision was relatively easy. At the end of the day, I just wasn’t willing to hang up my boots on the back of an injury like that”.
Arguably experiencing a smaller involvement than desired with Clare this season may nudge him over the line for what would be a thirteenth senior championship campaign in saffron and blue, a concussion injury ensured he played no part in the 2021 campaign.
“I had a very compressed campaign, I was very aware that these could be my last games with Clare. And it started to become quite uncomfortable but I will also say that I’m not of the same mindset as Tony (Kelly), so I don’t intend to be scraped off the floor of a Clare dressing room to get me out of there. I will hopefully be able to walk out on my two feet but I think there is that group that have played there for so long, it is hard. It’s going to be a big decision from the first person to move out. Then, if that person moves, then I think the rest of them will flow pretty quickly. We kind of just said that this year was probably going to be our last year. A lot of us actually explicitly had plans to leave (after 2025) and weren’t going to be available for the year after. It wasn’t one isolated conversation, or it wasn’t a one-to-one chat. It was kind of, I wouldn’t say it was an agreement but it was yeah, that was definitely kind of the path we were going to go, which has changed slightly”.
Three-time All Star Shane is confident Clare will continue to compete at a high level when the experienced heads begin to step away. “I think any player wants to leave the team in a place that (is healthy). But I’m not concerned about that, actually, to be honest. There’s so many young lads that we’re seeing coming through with brilliant talent and I think there’ll be enough players who have been exposed to the last few years of somewhat success, and then obviously the success last year, where we’re competing at the top level. They’ve seen what it takes. We’ve probably had three or four years of that now, so there’s a lot of players that have been exposed to that so I don’t personally feel in any way concerned that a few of us will rotate out and that there will be a Clare drop off at all. I just don’t see that being a problem at all”.
In terms of travel, he’s heading on holidays to Malta which will mean he’ll be absent for Éire Óg’s Division 2 league final against Ballyea on Friday but he’ll be leading the line for the Townies in the Clare SHC when they face Newmarket-on-Fergus, Wolfe Tones and Feakle.
Australia is now a more likely destination than a move to the United States, he admitted. “My girlfriend and I initially talked about going to the States. But for us at the moment, the States is a less appealing place to be honest. The whole visa thing has got a lot more complicated, so that is probably off the cards. We’ll still be looking to go somewhere like Australia, but that does push the timeline out a small bit more, so it’s (playing on for Clare) potentially available”.
