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*Eugene Cullinan with his family and the Canon Hamilton. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
TIRED of hearing ‘what’s another year’, Inagh/Kilnamona changed the record and now the dog days are over.
Among the first songs on the playlist in their victorious dressing room following Sunday’s county final win over Kilmaley was the Florence and the Machine anthem ‘The Dogs Days Are Over’ while it was the second song played as the county champions arrived back to a rapturous welcome in Inagh on Sunday night.
Forever more Eugene Cullinan will be remembered as the man to get Inagh/Kilnamona across the line. He won an Clare IHC in 2005 when it was just Inagh, he scored two goals in the first senior hurling championship game when Inagh and Kilnamona merged in 2008, he was the first manager to lead them to a county final appearance in his debut season in 2021 and now he has become the first senior championship winning manager of the club.
Tired of hearing their time would come, Cullinan & Co were ecstatic to have ended their wait for senior success. “As one of the lads said to me there’s no next year, it is only this year, next year is for someone else and we’ve always been told there is another year for us but at last we got over the line, we’re delighted, it is historic, we will enjoy it, I’m delighted for all the people in the community young and old, they waited a long time for this and I’m delighted for them”.
Tied on fifty minutes, Inagh/Kilnamona hit four points without reply over four minutes to go 1-15 1-12 ahead, Kilmaley brought it back to two points on two more occasions but in additional time the winners struck for 1-2 without reply. “What a game, I didn’t enjoy it, it was really tense, two very good teams with a lot on the line, we made a reasonably good start but we just weren’t clinical in front of the goals, Kilmaley punished us and it was nip and tuck all the way to the fiftieth minute before we got a bit of daylight and pulled away at the end, we could relax some small bit then,” a proud Cullinan told The Clare Echo.
Nerves were evident from both camps at the beginning of the game where the first quarter had just one score from play. “It was pure cagey, even the game starting at 16:15 you’re waiting around all day but both teams had to wait, I thought we started well, we didn’t put the ball over the bar, real characters in that group, real leaders who stood up, Aidan stood up, Éamonn stood up, Fred Hegarty at the end unbelievable the way he took his goal, across the field, Shane Woods was brilliant, we got on top, let it go again, got on top, it was a real topsy turvy battle but I’m delighted for the lads, really good young lads with big futures ahead of them”.
Captain Aidan McCarthy scoring 1-1 without reply in the second quarter helped Inamona to trail by one at half time. Of their mood at half time, Eugene outlined, “We were delighted, the breeze was slightly across the field, it was favouring the Cloister side which is unusual in the Park, it is usually coming the other way, one point down with that breeze which was definitely a three or four point breeze, our half back line started to break the ball down, the lads in the half-forward line were coming onto the breaks, we had a few wides but we kept going and going, we stuck with the process”.
Level six times, it looked for a spell in the second quarter that a replay would be required to crown the champions. On the sideline and engaged in discussions with his management of Mattie Shannon, Noel Hehir, Alan Griffin and Dermot Lynch, Eugene admitted he wasn’t as engaged in the match as they were focused on making changes. “You’re not overly watching the game, you’re looking for changes and switches, you’re getting lads in and out, you’re more invested in that, it was looking tight for a finish and we did get over the line, maybe scraped it a small bit but we will take it any way it would come”.
When they met on Sunday morning, Cullinan hammered home the message to his players that they defeated three of the last four winners in this year’s campaign, Ballyea (2022), Clonlara (2023) and Éire Óg (2025) and now was their time to become the champions.
Their quest had one final last stumbling block before the match even began with lively forward Conner Hegarty who had been an injury doubt, damaging his hamstring in the warm-up. “I feel so sorry for Conner, he contributed so much to this group throughout the year, he has struggled with injuries all year, we were managing as best as possible, on the big day his hamstring went ten minutes before throw-in, he played a big part in it, I’m so delighted for Conner that he was part of this, he will always be part of this, what a brilliant young man”.
Among the older members of Inagh/Kilnamona’s squad, the moustache sported by Eugene’s son Darren the side’s wing back has been credited as a lucky omen. Eugene has the final say when it comes to issuing instructions to Darren when it comes to tactics, on what he would recommend regarding the moustache, the manager remarked, “The call is get rid of it”.
