GOD knows what you’d do if you met a tractor (or any other vehicle for that matter) as you crawl along the narrow country lane to the Dúiche Néill training base near Blackwatertown in county Armagh.
But the journey is worth making.
Dúiche Néill (translates as O’Neill District) is a hurling club that straddles the Armagh-Tyrone border. Slap-bang in the middle of staunch football country, it welcomes in youngsters from the An Port Mor, Tullysaran, Collegeland, Clonmore and Grange clubs in Armagh and Moy and Eglish on the other side of the county line.
You know how they talk about ‘grassroots level’? Well, with the greatest of respect and admiration, this club is arguably below that level. Without a home to call their own, the Dúiche Néill coaches have planted the seeds of the caman code in this area and are nurturing a crop of young players up to (they hope) senior level.
With little or no support from the GAA hierarchy or local councils, they’ve had to become creative to stay afloat and have done so very impressively.
On winter nights they train in a cavernous shed (it’s actually an excellent facility) which has been loaned freely to the club by local businessman Paddy Finn. Drop in and you’ll see a swarm of youngsters involved in small-sided games at one end while many more sharpen their skills in drills in another area.
The roots of the club date back to the 1940s when hurling was originally brought to the area by seminarians at Benburb Priory. Benburb hurling club was established and won the Tyrone senior hurling championship in 1966. Fifty years after that victory – and with the club now out of business – the members of the team came together for a reunion and a decision was taken to re-establish hurling in the area.
In 2018, the club was revived as ‘cluster club’ Dúiche Néill and entered U6 and U8 teams in Tyrone underage league.
“We did think about pulling together a senior men’s team,” explains clubman Peter McKearney, a former chairman of the Moy Tir na nOg club.
“But there’d be no longevity in that.
“Karl McQuaid, Kevin Mallon and myself tried to get hurling going in the Moy from 2010 to 2012 but it never took off because, once the football started, the hurling just fell by the wayside.”
The idea of the ‘cluster’ club means that, rather than concentrating on a single club with limited population, the doors of Dúiche Néill are open to a much wider catchment area. After an understandably uncertain start, the steadfast determination of the Dúiche Néill committee and coaches has enabled the club to gradually build momentum and establish increasingly solid foundations.
“It was slow to get started and then Covid came along and it was a big hit on numbers,” Peter explains.
“But we’re optimistic. Look what Sleacht Neill have done in 50 years, look what East Belfast has done… Why can’t we do the same here? There’s no reason why not. The people round here are all interested in hurling and we’ve seen a big uptake this last couple of years. A lot of lads are coming and staying at it.”
From those early days at U6-8 level, next season Dúiche Néill will field U12 and U14 teams and amalgamated U16 and minor teams.
“The kids love it,” says Peter.
“The addition of this hall over the winter has been great. We’ve been begging, borrowing and stealing facilities over the winters since we started. If you don’t keep them together, we found that lads were tailing off so we needed to keep a stick and a sliothar in their hand and see them all winter and then, when we’re back on the grass, we know who we’ve got.
“We’ve been going for a while now but a lot of people don’t know we’re here so we want to get the word out and we’re planning to get a recreational hurling team together to play in a Junior B competition in Ulster and, out of that, hopefully we’ll get another three or four coaches and be able to drive it on. That’s the aim for this year.”
Another ambition is for the club to put down permanent roots in the area because up to now they’ve lived a transient existence, playing games at various clubs when pitches are available.
“Benburb is where the club has been situated and, ideally, we’d love to get a field,” says Peter.
“A couple of sites had been identified but they fell by the wayside. The local football clubs have been very accommodating to us but we’re still aiming to get seven-eight acres in Benburb.
“A hurling community can exist in this area. I think there was a reticence in the past where football clubs thought good players would choose hurling but it’s not about winning or success for us, we’re just about creating a hurling community. Football clubs have nothing to fear from hurling.”
WELL-hit sliothars hammer off the walls as 40 youngsters from U6 to U10 level train like demons in the background. Karl McQuaid, one of Ulster GAA’s fundamental coaches, takes a break from putting them through their paces to outline his hopes for the future development of the fledgling club.
“Myself and Peter are both big GAA men, we’re in the Moy club and we played a bit of hurling at secondary school but we never really had the opportunity to play the game around here,” he explains.
“One of the club coaches is from Blackwatertown and he has to go to Middletown to get hurling so it’s brilliant for these young lads to get the opportunity to learn how to play the game in their own area and you never know where it could take them.”
Dúiche Néill is a small part in a big issue for the GAA. Shortly after he took office, GAA Uactarain Jarlath Burns established a Hurling Development Committee which has a mission to grow and develop the game throughout the country.
Burns didn’t have access to a hurling club in his playing days but his sons Conall and Jarly Og play for the Craobh Rua club in Armagh.
“As somebody who never had an opportunity to play hurling myself, I certainly made sure my own children wouldn’t have it the same, and they all played hurling and they enjoyed playing hurling,” he said recently.
Dúiche Néill have to be applauded for their tireless efforts to plant the seeds of hurling in their area and nurture their young crop of hurlers through to senior level but Karl McQuaid believes that the Ulster Council could be doing more to help.
“There isn’t really a drive for hurling,” he said.
“Particularly in football counties. Hopefully that will change but the football takes preference in most counties and I think Ulster GAA could do a lot more. There’s always a lot of talk about it but there’s not enough action on the ground.
“I haven’t seen anybody coming out here to give us a hand from Ulster GAA. Tyrone County Board have got behind us to give us a hand but there’s much more could be done, I think.
“I coach in schools and they are crying out for hurling coaches but can’t get them. We have a lot of hurling development officers but we need to get them out on the ground to help the wee clubs that have started out like Dúiche Néill and help the clubs that are trying to get stronger.
“It’s definitely too much concentrated on the football in this part of the country but this shed is our starting point and we’re going to keep our winter programme going because if a lad doesn’t have a hurl in his hand for a couple of months you’ll never get him back at it.
“You watch these lads and see how much they love the game. You can see their enthusiasm for it and that’s what keeps us going as coaches – if we didn’t have that we wouldn’t be here.”
With a smile and a nod, he goes back into the thick of it in the shed.
The hurls swing, the sliothars fly and hurling’s stout heart beats in football country.
