IF CLUBS ARE like families, then some families make a club. That’s the way it is for the O’Hagan and Seeley families from Lurgan, who have been the backbone of Clan na Gael for several decades.
Here we delve into the story of a lad with a Donegal upbringing who is bringing it all back home this Sunday as he lines out for the club of his forefathers.
BUMPY
The end came with crushing innocence.
Barry O’Hagan was 40 years of age. He was building a family home. He was up to his eyes. And his wife was going through cancer.
For the previous decade he wore out tyre rubber traipsing the road from Newtowncunningham, Co Donegal, to Lurgan to continue playing football for Clan Na Gael. A round journey of 164 miles.
His cousin Kevin had taken over the senior team a couple of years previously and Barry – ‘Bumpy’ to his many team mates, Barry John to others – had re-registered with the club to play a bit for the second string. When that ended, Kevin pushed the open door of asking if he might help out a bit and play for the first team.
So he played the next two years but one day they lost in the Intermediate championship to Mullaghban.
He was slowing up. He knew that. Where once before he would see a ball in the air and just go up, now he was plotting the route up there and where he might go after. Instinct was replaced by over-thinking.
After the defeat he eased himself back into the car. His son Brendan was nine years old and he landed the fatal blow.
“Why didn’t you try, Daddy?”
Try? Try? TRY?
He’d only knocked his ass in for his entire life for Clan Na Gael.
In 2003, he tired of the intercounty life. He’d had an All-Ireland medal in his pocket when he was sent on as a sub in the 24th minute of the final the year before as Armagh beat Kerry.
The follow up was tricky for Armagh in general, for O’Hagan in particular. He was by then living in Omagh.
“It wouldn’t have been the most welcoming environment I have to say. Tyrone-Armagh rivalry was at its peak, and maybe it’s me being paranoid, but I felt not very welcome!” he recalls.
Then Tyrone beat Armagh in the ’03 final and he was gone, worn out by the constant travelling to not even Armagh for county training, but across the border to Sheelagh, close by Hackballscross in Louth.
By then, he and Lisa had Lauren. Brendan was to follow soon.
Armagh was an all or nothing venture. He could re-commit to Clan Na Gael now. But in 2004 they were relegated.
It had been ten years since his father Noel had managed the club to back to back Armagh titles. Now Barry would take over.
They got up in year one. In year two they won the Division 1 league, and lost the county final replay to a Crossmaglen Rangers side winning their 11th consecutive championship.
They were now stationed in Newtowncunningham in Donegal and building a house. He played on for one more year.
Glenswilly came knocking and he managed there for a year. Then he togged out for the local club, Naomh Colmcille, and won a Donegal junior championship.
When his cousin Kevin took over the Clans, he was away back down the road to Lurgan again. More years of driving on an empty stomach, folding yourself out of a car only to drain every ounce of energy from the body with gruelling training sessions.
To get back in the car, to let your body stew in a toxic mix of lactic acid and fatigue as you drove 82 miles. To get home to a wife going through extensive cancer treatment.
NOEL AND MOYA
Clan na Gael might be a town team, but it’s no different than the most remote of country clubs; the same families make their contribution down through the generations.
This Sunday, Brendan O’Hagan will be playing in his second consecutive county final. His father Barry played in four, winning two.
As players, there are some similarities. They might have been handed jerseys in the forward lines, but would float out around the middle.
Brendan’s grandfather Noel has eight county titles for Clan Na Gael, and three Ulster titles. He was on the famous side of Colm McKinstry, Jimmy Smith and Jim McKerr that were beaten in the All Ireland final replay by a University College Dublin team managed by Eugene McGee in 1974.
He played for Armagh, but an untimely ankle ligament injury left him on the bench for the 1977 All Ireland final and a heavy defeat to Dublin.
Later, he managed Clan Na Gael to those county titles in ’93 and ’94.
All his children played. His son Mark was good enough to play for Armagh minors and U21s before his studies took him to England, where he remained. His daughters Ciara, Niamh and Roisín all played camogie for the club.
His brothers Jim and Sean also played for Armagh and were prominent members of the Ulster winning Clans teams.
After managing the senior team, he was challenged to become club chairman. He hadn’t given it a moment’s thought, but it was put up to him and he accepted.
When Noel turned 70, he decided it was time to step down from the role of chairman.
He had a solid shift: 26 years.
LISA
When Barry finished playing, they were living in a house and had an untouched site sitting in a green field.
During a conversation his father, Noel told him that if he didn’t get a start on the house soon, he never would.
And so he did. He borrowed a bit of money and had some savings. He got the foundations dug and blockwork up to the first-floor slabs. Then a mortgage was approved.
He and Lisa were set. She was an original Derry girl, from the Creggan itself. They met in Queen’s and she had no interest in sport nor jersey-grabbing aspirations. O’Hagan’s status as an Armagh footballer meant nothing. Still, they felt that spark.
The arrival of Lauren forced them to move closer to her parents, and then Brendan came along. Now, they were set on the path of building their forever home, when she needed to go to the doctors. To get something checked out. She spent four or five months on a waiting list.
“She then had to go to the clinic and was diagnosed with breast cancer and it has spread to her lymph nodes,” says Barry.
“That was a third of the way into building a house. The kids were 12 and nine at the time, Lauren was 12.
“She had chemo, surgery and then radio treatment. She had a rough 10 to 12 months and had a few hairy moments with it, after surgery in particular.
“Lisa was 40 and what she physically went through, all the stuff you do with cancer, breast cancer, chemotherapy was horrendous on her for three, four months and then surgery and radiotherapy. Hormone treatment for eight or nine years after that.”
What saved her, what saved him and their children, was how she tackled it.
“She was so positive, mentally. I would put a lot on that. From day one there was never any talk about what if she might die or anything like that,” he says.
“It was all about what the plan was, what the next thing was. She was very functional around getting better.
“Very, very positive and I suppose after a while somebody said to me, ‘you are still out going to football and the kids are playing away, as if nothing is wrong’.
“But, it’s as if you don’t really have any choice. You just have to put one foot in front of the other and it becomes your normality.
“The impact was with the kids. They were of an age that when you tell them their mum’s not well and you are not sure if she is going to be ok, you can never say that to them.
“You would probably never know the impact it had on them and it’s the same with thousands of families. When kids are that young, the world seems to be crashing down around you. We will probably never really know the impact it had on them.
“I feel it might have shaped them a little bit. I would think the pair of them are pretty resilient young adults and were resilient through their teenage years.”
Nowadays, Lisa is in great health. The kids are young adults now, doing great. Lauren is 23 and studying pharmacy in Queen’s University, where her parents met.
With both children gone from the house, both parents are gym-goers. Barry, four or five times a week and a couple of runs if he can.
Lisa goes to an all-female gym and her dedication outstrips that of Barry, who believes his own levels to be even higher than they were back when Armagh were the original GAA gym rats.
BRENDAN
When Declan Darcy was a young child, he grew up as a child of south Dublin, beside the RDS.
But every weekend, his father Frank would start the engine on his work van and drive Declan to Aughawillan in Co Leitrim, to play football for the parish.
That dedications climaxed when Declan captained Leitrim to the 1994 Connacht championship.
There was no plan for that kind of thing with the O’Hagans.
Instead, Brendan showed some early promise as a boxer, at the Raphoe club, later moving into the Oak Leaf club in Derry city.
He played a little underage for Naomh Colmcille in Donegal. He even popped up on Donegal development squads.
But during the summer holidays he got into the habit of going down to bond with his Lurgan grandparents, Noel and Moya, and cousin James Austin, his Donegal drawl being a fascination.
He went along to the pitch one day and was sent out in a blue jersey by the U10 manager Malachy Quinn. And that was it. He was a Clan na Gael man.
Like his father. Like his grandfather.
Like his great maternal grandfather Brian Seeley, who played and scored in the 1953 All Ireland final.
Sometimes, Brendan says to his father that he would love to get back into boxing, but between his studies in University Ulster Jordanstown, his part time job in Armagh and his football in Lurgan, time is precious.
He has a few Ulster and Nine Counties titles. In his last fight a few years back, he suffered a perforated ear drum. He gave it a chance to heal and hasn’t had the time to get back in the ring.
LURGAN
“I have heard people saying before that Lurgan is a soccer town. And it is a nonsense. It couldn’t be further from the truth,” Barry O’Hagan says.
Let’s hear him out. Let’s look at the evidence.
In a town and area with around 30,000 population, a sizeable chunk of which would have little interest in Gaelic Games, you have Clan Na Gael, Clann Éireann, St Peter’s, St Paul’s, Eire Óg and Sean Treacys hurling club.
Just outside the area, you have Wolfe Tones and Sarsfields.
There is a chance that with clubs such as Lurgan Celtic and Glenavon, along with some impressive soccer players such as Neil Lennon and Gerry Taggart, impressions are formed.
“But Lurgan is a Gaelic town. A massive Gaelic town,” O’Hagan insists.
Clan na Gael are the only side unbeaten in this year’s championship. They beat Madden in the semi-final and Killeavey in the quarter-final, following group stage wins over Crossmaglen, Sarsfields and Granemore.
Crosstown rivals Clann Éireann beat Crossmaglen in the semi-final and Armagh Harps in the quarter-final.
It’s impossible to argue that this does not rank among the densest GAA areas in Ireland. And it also performs a serious social outlet in an area with some familiar issues to urban areas.
On Sunday, the town of Lurgan and its Gaelic football culture will be showcased and celebrated on county final day.
For the O’Hagan family, it will be something else as they watch Brendan bound out onto the pitch.
When Barry started playing, he had a season or two alongside Jim ‘Tidsy’ McKerr who played in the 1977 All Ireland final. When he was finishing up, he managed to squeeze in a couple of years playing alongside Stefan Campbell; almost fifty years of Armagh and Clan na Gael culture bridged. And now, the family tradition remains.
“Somebody asked me how did Brendan make that commitment, living in Donegal,” says O’Hagan.
“But I think your club is not really where you are from, or where you are living; it’s who you are.”
