You could easily make the mistake of looking on from the outside of Derry and shrugging your shoulders at the idea of Slaughtneil winning again.
The Emmet’s have dominated the Oak Leaf county for the last three years and their stranglehold of all its championships has only gripped tighter.
But it’s not like this is how it always is. It’s not like this is a boring procession now where Slaughtneil show up and everyone else just bows to their superiority and tradition. That couldn’t be further from how it is. Everything this club is reaping now has been sowed relentlessly and tirelessly and it has been sowed in the face of gut-punches and rejections.
Everything they’ve gotten, they’ve earned it and it’s only in the last few years that this is all coming to fruition.
.@GACSlaughtneil have won the Senior Football, Senior Camogie and Senior Hurling title in Derry for the second year running#tripledouble pic.twitter.com/2DIgiMVhKZ
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) October 16, 2016
On Sunday, Slaughtneil shook the island. Their four-point defeat of 2012 All-Ireland club champions Loughgiel crowned them as the first ever Derry club to win the Ulster hurling championship. It broke the Antrim and Down dominance which had stretched as far back as forever and it inspired – at least it should have – Gaels the length of the country to believe that anything is possible.
Why? Because this has been brought about – forced about – by pure desire and it has only happened in the last few years.
Slaughtneil have won the last four Derry hurling titles. Before that, they had accumulated one in two decades.
Slaughtneil have won the last three Derry football titles. Before that, they had accumulated one in their lifetime.
This year, they added the camogie championship. They won the reserve football championship. They won the reserve hurling championship. They’ve created tradition off their own bats – they’ve stopped reading history, they started writing it.
It’s only a small townland off the Glenshane Pass. If you’re going up over that scenic mountain that divides the north and south of Derry, you turn off and drive through seclusion a few miles and Emmet Park opens up before you. It’s a crazy sight. You’d think you’re in the middle of nowhere and then these training pitches, this big open field with a stand overlooking it and a proud club house standing tall welcomes you to what feels like the epicentre of the world.
Hundreds upon hundreds of kids could be there pucking around, kicking ball, cars planted in every direction on a nearby field in this booming, rural Gaeltacht area. It’s the same place they had somehow managed to transform into the biggest disco in Ulster, with bus loads of kids arriving down to The Slaughtneil every Friday – no-one knows how or why, it just happened.
On a greater scale, so too has their success on the field. It just happened. Well, it happened because a few good Gaels made it happen.
Now, they have men who’d run through a brick wall for their club. They have men like Cormac McKenna who, dripping blood all over his jersey, togs and hurl, is pissed off at the prospect of coming out of the action.
If anything sums up Slaughtneil, this photo from Mary K Burke sums it up better.
@eoin_mcguigan Blood on the Bas, on the togs, the jersey, legs and hand – and he was annoyed at coming off – I think he's the gem! #Cutler pic.twitter.com/de3ciTK7Y4
— Mary K Burke (@MKBurke1) October 23, 2016
It’s more than blood. It’s more than sport. It’s all that matters in Slaughtneil.
Don't think I've taken a more emotional pic – or that I've been more emotional taking one, congratulations to the Gaels of @GACSlaughtneil pic.twitter.com/W5r2MQb2Vf
— Mary K Burke (@MKBurke1) October 23, 2016
Here, Eanna Cassidy is held aloft above the crowd. Just 48 hours earlier, his father and club legend Thomas Cassidy was put to rest and it’s like the heavens are smiling down on the player and the club.
That is Slaughtneil. That is the GAA.
And only a few years ago, they were just like anyone else. But a few years ago, they decided themselves to do something about it. Now, they don’t just believe that anything is possible. They know it is.
In the latest GAA Hour, we talk to Ken McGrath of Waterford and with Declan Brennan about a new club players’ association.
