Latest news with #ConnKilpatrick
Irish Times
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Malachy Clerkin: Forget burning tricolours and immigrant effigies, Croke Park is where our culture is this weekend
They're burning the tricolour in Tyrone . As the man quoted at the end of Seanín Graham's report from the Moygashel bonfire on Thursday night trumped, 'This is all part of our culture.' And though the week of The Twelfth comes and goes across the six counties every year, it feels as though there's something particularly ghoulish about it this time around. As ever, we are blissfully detached from it all down here. There's an extreme dissonance, a sense of two planets whipping past each other without noticing. In Dublin this weekend, it's All-Ireland semi-final time . The tribes are gathering, from Kerry and Meath and Donegal. And from Tyrone. Moygashel is a small village just outside Dungannon. Four miles to the north is Edendork, home of Niall Morgan, Conn Kilpatrick and Darren McCurry. Drive another five minutes and you're in Coalisland, where Pádraig Hampsey, Michael McKernan and Niall Devlin grew up. In all, 13 of Tyrone's match day 26 are from GAA clubs within a 15-mile radius of Moygashel. READ MORE 'There'll always be people who'll complain about the Moygashel bonfire ... but we love our village. This is all part of our culture.' — The Irish Times (@IrishTimes) Their bonfire this year has caught wider attention not because of the tricolour – that's de rigueur – but because of the 12 dark-faced mannequins in a makeshift dinghy on top. Burn the symbol of the taigs, burn the immigrants in effigy. 'This is all part of our culture.' And normally, you'd be inclined to leave them at it. Irish people in the north have, in the main, long since made their own accommodations with this carry-on. Ignore. Go about your week. Head away somewhere and do your own thing. [ Dean Rock: Tyrone need to try something unexpected to shock Kerry Opens in new window ] For a lot of Tyrone people, Croke Park is this weekend's somewhere. More of them will come than might otherwise have made the trip. Tyrone have been involved in plenty of games played for high stakes in high summer down the years. But an All-Ireland semi-final in Croke Park on the 12th of July? Never happened before. Will it matter on the field? Probably not. Certainly, Kerry won't quail at the sight of a bigger crowd coming down from the north. But if Tyrone are going to pull off an upset, they're going to need all the stubbornness and persistence they can muster. Living cheek by jowl with people who delight in burning tricolours tends to foster such qualities in abundance. Tyrone's Michael McKernan celebrates after the game against Donegal. Photograph: John Vitty/Inpho More tangibly, Michael McKernan's return to the panel could be significant. Whether Tyrone selector Colm McCullagh was pulling the old switcheroo during the week when he said McKernan was very unlikely to make it will only become clear if and when he appears. But there's no question Tyrone could do with him. As it stands, the threats in the Kerry forward line probably outnumber the Tyrone bodies needed for matchups. Hampsey on David Clifford, possibly Peter Teague on Seánie O'Shea. A fully-fit McKernan might be a candidate for Paudie Clifford, as well as posing a threat going the other way. But the shoulder injury that had him walking off against Cavan in wincing pain was only a month ago . How ready can he be? [ Meet the Meath footballers who have taken the championship by storm Opens in new window ] Being roundly dismissed will, naturally enough, suit Tyrone. They can reasonably argue that they're arriving in the last four more battle-hardened than Kerry. They've played four Division One teams, Kerry have only played one. They've beaten Dublin in Croke Park and Donegal in Ballybofey . It's only four weeks since Kerry lost to Meath in Tullamore. We all presume that none of these things amount to a ball of wax once the ball is thrown in but the memory of last year's semi-finals is still there, nagging away. Jack O'Connor and Jim McGuinness came in afterwards and pondered aloud why their teams had been so flat down the stretch . Maybe the win over Armagh puts to rest any notion that Kerry are too lightly raced. Or maybe everyone is reading way too much into a 13-minute spell where everything went right. It was a stunning display of power and skill, the best of what the new game has to offer. But it was also the first time all year that Kerry had come with a wet sail. It's not a given that they'll repeat it. [ How Kerry dismantled Armagh in just 15 minutes of ruthless dominance Opens in new window ] Kerry nailed 11 out of 14 of Ethan Rafferty's kick-outs in that killer period – what happens if Morgan flips those numbers? What if Tyrone, flinty and grouchy and sick of being ignored, establish some midfield dominance and feed McCurry and Darragh Canavan inside? What if Peter Harte and Mattie Donnelly refuse to let this be their last game in Croke Park? There could be defiance in them yet. Donegal's Patrick Mc Brearty celebrates after scoring a point against Monaghan. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho The other game this weekend looks a more straightforward kind of deal. Donegal's summer has contained everything – Meath on Sunday will be their 10th game of the championship, with extra-time in the Ulster final thrown in for good measure . They've played four Division One teams and only lost to Tyrone. The one thing they will not worry about is being road-tested. Maybe the most ominous thing about Donegal's second half against Monaghan is that they didn't change very much to turn a seven-point deficit into a six-point win. They just did Plan A better, faster, more Donegal-ier. It was the same against Louth in the preliminary quarter-final. Combine the second halves of their last two games and they've outscored the opposition by 2-31 to 0-10. It's hard to see that roll stopping here. But then, it's precisely that kind of airy dismissal that has made Meath the story of the championship. They are the only unbeaten team in Sam Maguire competition, despite having been the underdogs in each of the four games they've played. They've played three Division One teams since April and beaten them all. And still nobody gives them a prayer. Maybe that says more about us than it does about them. Either way, they'll turn up and give Donegal their bellyful. On both days, we'll watch and wonder what's going to happen. We'll bake in the sun and we'll shield our eyes with match programmes. We'll give out to the ref and roar at the linesman and scream and yap and b***h and moan. We might shake hands when it's over and we might not. But we'll head back the road, ready for the next one. It's like the man said. This is all part of our culture.
BBC News
14-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Kilpatrick calls for fans to support Tyrone in Ulster clash with Armagh
Fans of Antrim and Cavan would not agree, but an Armagh v Tyrone Ulster semi-final was the fixture most people were hoping to see when the provincial draws were made for All-Ireland champions, Armagh are the standard-bearers in inter-county football yet luck has not been on their side in recent Ulster Championship campaigns and an Anglo Celt is a glaring omission from these players' growing list of are among the teams on the other side of the draw, but for these bitter rivals and neighbours it's all about themselves and each other for the next two weeks leading up to Saturday 26 20 years since this rivalry was at its height. Who could forget those epic games of the noughties played out in front of packed houses in Clones and Croke Park?And while Armagh are the team enjoying a massive support these days, Tyrone's support is modest in sparse attendance greeted them as they ran out at Healy Park for Sunday's Ulster Championship victory over Cavan with just 6,791 turning up, and goalscorer Conn Kilpatrick admits they'd love to see bigger crowds getting behind them. "I suppose in the last few years the performances have maybe warranted that (poor attendances)," said Kilpatrick."But any day you get a big crowd, and that is what we're pushing for and why we do these interviews - to get the crowd out - it's a big lift to the players."Tyrone are the last team to beat Armagh in 70 minutes of championship was back in 2023 in the round robin stages of the All-Ireland series, in then they have been on different paths, with Armagh contesting Ulster finals and those bittersweet defeats on penalties by Derry and Donegal merely served to fuel their hunger it led to All-Ireland glory last are starting from a lower base and despite an unlucky relegation from Division One, they are building for a future under new manager Malachy O' 1-24 to 0-20 win over Cavan was far from perfect, with defensive frailties and at times wastefulness in attack mixed at times with good transitional moments and shot Red Hands know they will need a better performance against Armagh, while they will hope that their talisman Darragh Canavan is fit for the last four after he was a late change to the side that faced Cavan thanks to a hamstring problem. "We put two or three decent performances together at the end of the league to prove that we're rallying, and it's a big plus when the supporters come out and get behind us," said Kilpatrick."I know it's easy to sit in the house and watch it on TV and not everyone can get to the games but as players we'd have loved it to be 90 per cent Tyrone fans here today and 10 per cent Cavan."But hopefully the crowd will come out the next day for Tyrone against Armagh."The Ulster Council have still to confirm where the game will be played, with Clones looking the likely option."It will be interesting to see where it is played but I don't really mind where it is, I'm sure both teams are the same. It's just one to look forward to for everybody."
