Irish Football

Four Provinces honoree David Doyle flanked by his two best girls, girlfriend Ann Rogers and mom Joan, who flew from Ireland to see her son receive his awards.

It could be a movie plot. A little team of Irishmen from Philadelphia, on its way to New York to compete in a Gaelic football championship, is involved in an accident that leaves their bus wrecked. Fortunately no one is injured, but they also have no way to get to Gaelic Park, where they’re facing the senior finals. But the team is carried off to the game in the dozens of cars of their diehard fans who have been following them on the highway.

And, of course, they go on to win the game. Colm Meaney will surely play the role of the team coach who, in real life, is Seamus Sweeney of Upper Darby (and before that, Cresslough, County Donegal, Ireland). It was his team, the Donegal Gaelic Football Club, also known as Four Provinces, that survived the frightening bus crash to dump Leitrim of New York 2-13 to 2-9 for the trophy (after trouncing Cavan 1-13 to 1-10). They went home with a police escort across the George Washington Bridge.

And on Saturday night, at the Donegal GFC Annual Banquet, they reveled in their win. They also finally received their medals during a ceremony held in the Barry Room of the Irish Center in Mt. Airy which also honored dozens of others who had played a pivotal role in resurrecting this fierce and proud club in 1988.

Among the honorees were Charlie and Peggy Murray who were not only founding members of the team, but for years opened their home to players from Ireland. “They are everything that epitomizes the Donegal GFC,” said Club Chairman Tommy Higgins as he presented the Murrays with their award.

Team members singled out for both their efforts during the finals and over the season were club high scorer for two years running, Liam O’Donnell, of Derry. O’Donnell was also one of the four New York all-stars who received a trophy. The others were Mike Higgins, David Doyle, and Liam Moore. Team Captain Liam McGroarty presented Coach Sweeney with a framed collage of the team’s 2007 exploits, and bid an emotional goodbye to his teammates; McGroarty and his wife, Claire, are returning to Ireland.

By Paul Schneider

Whether he’s running his thriving landscaping business or playing Gaelic football, Dan Clark knows a thing or two about planting seeds, nurturing them and watching them grow into something special.

Clark, the Player of the Year on the Kevin Barrys team that captured the Intermediate title at the North American Gaelic Athletic Association Championships in Chicago last year, is getting ready for another season of helping things to take root. 

In customers’ yards, there are trees that will be planted, lawns that will be revived and paths that will be built.  In East Falls, where the Kevin Barrys work out indoors before moving to the Roxborough High field in the spring, things aren’t much different.  It’s in East Falls that the Barrys’ side is planting the seeds for their upcoming title defense, and where people like Clark are nurturing the future of Gaelic football in the United States. 

“I don’t know where to start,” he said earlier this winter.  “I was about 20 or 21 years old when I started watching the game.  There was something about it that was special.  I loved the way all the Irish guys take the game so seriously.  It kind of caught on and I just kept going with it.”

The game has been a perfect addition to Clark’s sports resume, which reads like the menu at an athletic all-you-can-eat buffet.  Played soccer until he was 15.  Junior high and ninth grade football at Hatboro-Horsham High.   Baseball for a year at East Stroudsburg University, after which he focused increasingly on academics.

In retrospect, graduating with a degree in Criminal Justice was the easy part.  Finding a job was far tougher.  Clark took “hundreds” of test for law enforcement-related positions.  “There were hundreds of people taking every test,” he notes.  “And they were only hiring one guy.”

With a loan from girlfriend Caroline Heedles’ father, Clark founded Clark’s Precision Landscaping in Horsham.  He bought some equipment, and 15 customers from another contractor.  Today he has more equipment.  And more than 100 customers.

Somewhere along the way, Clark has time to play as a receiver in rough touch American football leagues in the Eastern Montgomery County area, and periodically shows up on the field in soccer matches in Pennypack Park at the request of Barrys goaltender Benny Landers.  Gaelic football, he says, is something that keeps him “busy in the summer.”  Go figure.

“I like the competitive nature of it,” the 26-year-old Clark says.  “Every year I go out just to have a good time and see how things go.  I think it’s something I’ll be doing until I stop having fun, or my legs hurt too badly to play anymore.”

By Paul Schneider

In the emotional world of Gaelic football, it would be easy to draw the conclusions from a highly-charged championship match, a flurry of police activity and a quick exit out of town.  But if you believe that all of the above added up to an on-field donnybrook in last Sunday’s New York Senior Championships, you’d be wrong.

Philadelphia’s Donegal Football Club dumped Leitrim, of New York, 2-13 to 2-9 for the championship Sunday afternoon at Gaelic Park in the Bronx.  The victory had been preceded by a 1-13 to 1-10 win over Cavan, and was followed by a police escort across the George Washington Bridge.

“It was a sign of respect,” said Seamus Sweeney, the Upper Darby resident who managed the Donegal footballers to their first New York Senior Championship title in only the second season for the club.  “This was a mighty achievement.”

The second football championship in a month for Philadelphia – the Kevin Barrys captured the Intermediate national crown over the Labor Day Weekend in Chicago – the Donegal win avenged the club’s only loss of the season, a one-pointer against Leitrim earlier in the summer.

Team captain Liam McGroarty and center half forward Michael Hagan scored Donegal’s two goals in the final; Hagan registered the only three-pointer for the Philly club in the semi-final against Cavan.  Donegal also got strong play from attacker Dean O’Neill, as well as Liam Moore, Patsy Moore and Liam O’Donnell.

The Barrys are all ears for the coach, Gerard Dillon.

By Paul Schneider

So right up front, we have to give Tir na Nog credit. Don’t want to get the Kevin Barrys Gaelic footballers in trouble with the downtown eatery that’s their official sponsor and unofficial destination.

But with apologies to the folks at 16th and Arch, the key location in this story is Billy Murphy’s Pub in East Falls. Or more correctly, the gym behind Billy Murphy’s Pub in East Falls. That’s the winter home of what Gerard Dillon considers the future of Irish football in this country.

While squads that are well-stocked with players from overseas scatter in the off-season, Dillon’s mostly American-born squad, the Kevin Barrys, simply changes venue. After an Autumn of relaxation, they begin to gather in East Falls in mid-January to play basketball and indoor soccer, and to get a head start on being a team again.

“One of the advantages of having a lot of American players is that we have most of the club together all year round,” said Dillon after coaching the Kevin Barrys to a 1-7 to 0-4 victory over Tyrone in Bill Davis Cup play at Cardinal Dougherty High School last Sunday. “With other teams, you lose guys when they go home. Most of our players live here.”

For all of them, the transition from winter indoor workouts to outdoor drills and practices comes—fittingly enough—around St. Patrick’s Day. Over the next several months, there are two key objectives: to coax older players out of “retirement” for one more season and to hone teamwork among the growing group of young Americans.

Some of the latter, like cousins Kevin and Brendan Trainor, grew up with the game through the influence of their fathers. Others, like Horsham’s Dan Clark, participated in other sports as high schoolers, but have come to enjoy the fast pace and challenging play of Gaelic football. All of them, says Dillon, are the next generation of Gaelic football in this country.

“We’ve got to promote the American players,” said Dillon. “They don’t always have the background in the game that the Irish players have, but I think they work harder at learning it sometimes than the Irish. And when you have a good nucleus of American players, you have a team that is with you all year ‘round.”