Conleith Gilligan admits Armagh's All-Ireland win ‘was brilliant but strange' as he maps out end to Ulster SFC drought

The Irish Sun

26-04-2025

HOLDING Sam Maguire in the colours of Armagh was a strange feeling for Conleith Gilligan.
Coaching the Orchard to glory last
summer
brought great joy — but his first dream was to do it with
3
Conleith Gilligan is a part of Kieran McGeeney's Armagh coaching set-up
Credit: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
3
The association peaked with winning the All-Ireland title last summer
Credit: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
3
He played for Derry for 13 years but never won championship silverware
Credit: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Foylesider Gilligan was a standout forward for the Oak Leaf for 13 seasons and won two Division 1 titles.
But he never lifted
Championship
silverware with his county.
Derry lost All-Ireland semi-finals against
Gilligan retired from inter-county
football
in 2012 and it was back to his beloved Ballinderry before teaming up with former Derry gaffer Mickey Moran as a Kilcoo coach.
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They led the Down giants to All-Ireland club glory in 2022, before Glen dethroned them as Ulster club kings a year later with Gilligan as boss.
Then when Orchard supremo Kieran McGeeney and coach Ciarán McKeever came knocking that
winter
, he could hardly say no.
But he also could have hardly dreamed of, out of nowhere, helping guide a provincial rival to just their second All-Ireland last summer.
He told SunSport: 'I suppose it's brilliant but it's different, you know?
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'For those that are Armagh people, born and bred . . . for Kieran McGeeney to do it as a player and a manager must be incredible.
'For Ciarán McKeever who won five or six Ulster medals but lost All-Ireland and semi-finals . . . for him it's probably validation for all the
work
that he's put in for so much time.
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'But you are a wee bit on the outside, and as much as everybody makes you feel brilliantly welcome, what you do is facilitate and help them fulfil that.
'And it was brilliant for me, because obviously it's something I tried to do for 13 or 14 years with Derry and we lost a couple of All-Ireland semi-finals.
'Then you realise, 'Look, it's not going to happen' and I suppose you never really think that it's going to happen to you as a coach. It's brilliant, but different.
'It's been very strange but it's been great. A great experience and I suppose a brilliant opportunity.'
BOUNCING BACK
Armagh were in a strange place themselves when Gilligan came on board.
That winter of 2023 was a dark one after
McGeeney survived calls for him to be replaced as manager as patience in the county started to wear thin.
More Ulster final penalty heartache followed against
Donegal
last May, but the doubters were silenced when
And Gilligan hailed their resolve ahead of today's provincial semi-final against
Tyrone
in Clones as they chase a first Anglo-Celt since 2008.
He said: 'You get to the Ulster final and it looks like you're going to win it in normal time and you don't.
'It looks like you're going to win it in extra-time and you don't, and then you lose on penalties. It would have been very easy for the players to down tools because they had so much disappointment.
'They'd lost the Ulster finals and had those disappointments in
next
thing'.
'Eaten bread is soon forgotten. It was refreshing for me because I took
energy
from that, because I know how disappointed I was and I was only there a wet week.
'So it was hugely impressive from a players' perspective that they decided 'it's the next thing'. That's the mark of the group and the humility.
'Winning or losing didn't really change them, it was still the same ethos of, 'Let's do the best we can with what we've got'.
'It's easy when you're winning, when you're winning everybody will put their shoulder to the wheel and everybody will sacrifice. To take the blows and keep coming back . . . that's a hugely impressive thing because as I said, success sometimes makes it easy.
'But when you don't succeed, there has to be something bigger than yourself and they have that.'
DERR TO STAY
Gilligan is rising as one of the top coaches in the game and was linked to the vacant Derry job last year before Paddy Tally took the reins.
But staying with Armagh for another year was an easy choice, and every day is a
school
day alongside McGeeney, McKeever and Kerry legend Kieran Donaghy.
He said: 'I only knew Kieran a wee bit but I was always hugely impressed by him and I suppose getting to work with him and all the Kierans/Ciaráns — Donaghy and McKeever — and Denis
Hollywood
and Julia O'Neill, it's just a brilliant group to work with.
'It's challenging at times and it's hard work but it's all worth it and I suppose, look, you can only be better as a consequence of being involved with people at that standard. The standards are so high it drives everybody on and everybody tries to be better.
'It's very hard to tell what you've learned because you kind of don't really know what you don't know.
'There'd have been elements of football that I wouldn't even have thought about that Kieran would have as his bread and butter.
'So, for me, the development has been huge and I suppose in every facet you're really a better person because of the lessons you learn around the group of humility and wanting better for the people around you and the standards that they would drive.
'That helps you in every way, and your whole life is just in a better place because you have to be, because you don't have time for messing about.
'It's bang, bang — and as I say, it's hard to know the gaps until you see them, but they're there and they're huge. I'll be forever grateful for the opportunity.'