THE TYPICAL PATTERN is for mid-November to be a quiet, reserved time in the GAA news cycle.
Yet over the last few days it has exploded to life with a series of announcements that will have ramifications for the shape of 2025 inter-county season.
Since Sunday morning’s revelation that Nickie Quaid has damaged his cruciate, Limerick hurling has started to grapple with the question of how they will plot a path next year without their long-serving and influential goalkeeper.
Yesterday morning came the announcement that Derry will operate without their talismanic defender Chrissy McKaigue, the Slaughtneil man retiring after being so integral to their recent Ulster championship and Allianz Division 1 league victories.
And then overnight came the seismic news that Brian Fenton was bringing the curtain down on his glittering Dublin football career.
The news, reported first in The Irish Times then confirmed by Dublin GAA this morning, closes a decade that shimmered with success for the Raheny man and was defined by the midfield brilliance he produced.
Why make the call now?
The temptation in these instances is to look at a player’s age and make a judgement that is premature, but it is more instructive to look at the length of their career.
Fenton may only be 31 years old but he has ten campaigns lodged in the bank. That is a sizeable chunk of time to have devoted to a game that is becoming increasingly demanding for the players involved.
And these were not short seasons.
On seven occasions Fenton was involved all the way to the season-ending All-Ireland final stage, winning on every one of those occasions, while he twice bowed out in All-Ireland semi-finals, and this summer’s quarter-final loss to Galway represented the earliest exit of his Dublin career.
The talk grew after the 2023 final that he was going to call it a day.
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Outside the Dublin dressing-room underneath the Hogan Stand after that win over Kerry, a pint of Guinness in his grasp, he talked to a group of us and explained just why he felt so joyous about this result in particular.
“I’m lucky enough to say I’ve seven All-Irelands now and it is the best, the sweetest of them all, without doubt. We got the band back together for one more hurrah.
“When you can get back to that stage, I think it’s such a genuinely, deeply rewarding feeling. Something that I’ll remember for a long time.
“I’ll go to bed with a smile on my face tonight thinking that Maccer (James McCarthy) went up those steps.”
“I started in 2015 – next year will be my 10th season. And I’ve always had it in my head that I’d love to do 10 seasons as a Dublin footballer. Now, whether I do 11 or 12, I don’t know.
“But I definitely want to do 10. I’d love to look back and go, ‘I gave a decade of seasons to Dublin.’ That’s a very insignificant personal thing, obviously. But it’s something I’ve always had in my head.”
Brian Fenton with Jim Gavin after the 2019 All-Ireland final. Oisin Keniry / INPHO
Oisin Keniry / INPHO / INPHO
Brian Fenton with Dessie Farrell after the 2023 All-Ireland final. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
The clues were there in plain sight. He was true to his word, reaching that milestone of ten campaigns in blue, and now opting to depart.
He leaves having compiled a stunning body of work, perhaps even more so because his was not a talent that earmarked for greatness from a young age. A call-up at minor level eluded him, before he squeezed in an U21 campaign in his last year of eligibility with Dublin in 2014.
Fenton was part of a star-studded Dublin team that dismantled Roscommon in that final in Tullamore, he swiftly graduated to the senior side and his career trajectory soared from there. The Class of 2014 – Fenton, Jack McCaffrey, Paul Mannion, John Small, David Byrne, Niall Scully, and Cormac Costello – were at the core of the unprecedented senior dominance that Jim Gavin presided over.
And Fenton was a shining emblem of that, introduced to a Dublin team that were shaken by Donegal in the famous 2014 All-Ireland semi-final, and helping transform them into a powerhouse that ruled the game.
The numbers make for compelling reading.
10 Leinster titles (never tasting defeat in the province), 7 All-Ireland wins, 6 All-Star awards, and 4 Division 1 league accolades.
He didn’t suffer his first loss in the championship arena until August 2021 in that extra-time epic against Mayo, with Kerry (2022) and Galway (2024) the only other teams to cause blemishes to that championship record.
His greatness can be gauged by the fact that as his career developed, he was namechecked alongside Jack O’Shea in the debates over the best midfielder to have played the game.
Brian Fenton with the Sam Maguire after the 2023 final. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
They were tied at 7-7 in Sam Maguire wins, 6-6 in the All-Star category, with O’Shea ahead 4-2 in Footballer of the Year wins, the Kerryman judged on the old Texaco award, while Fenton took the official GAA-GPA honour in 2018 and 2020. Trevor Giles and David Clifford are the other multiple winners of that award with two apiece.
But apart from the baubles, it is Fenton’s style and command of midfield play that will be recalled for some time. He glided around the pitch, put in the graft in assisting his defence, was proficient in aerial battles, but most strikingly, he excelled when Dublin moved forward. His skillset was central to Dublin’s attacking moves in unlocking defensive screens, while he frequently supplied key scores.
The effortless kicking style in popping over a point with minimal backlift, like a vital second-half point in the 2023 final against Kerry, or his ability to ghost through to get on the end of passing sequences and find the net, like the efforts against Cork and Mayo in the 2019 five-in-a-row winning season.
Coming a fortnight after the retirement of James McCarthy, the player he worked brilliantly in tandem with at midfield, it has the sense of a major shift for Dublin, particularly with speculation brewing that others are considering their inter-county futures.
Fenton labelled McCarthy as the best the capital has produced two weeks ago.
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'I’ve always had it in my head I’d love to do 10 seasons' - Clues to Fenton's exit were in plain sight
THE TYPICAL PATTERN is for mid-November to be a quiet, reserved time in the GAA news cycle.
Yet over the last few days it has exploded to life with a series of announcements that will have ramifications for the shape of 2025 inter-county season.
Since Sunday morning’s revelation that Nickie Quaid has damaged his cruciate, Limerick hurling has started to grapple with the question of how they will plot a path next year without their long-serving and influential goalkeeper.
Yesterday morning came the announcement that Derry will operate without their talismanic defender Chrissy McKaigue, the Slaughtneil man retiring after being so integral to their recent Ulster championship and Allianz Division 1 league victories.
And then overnight came the seismic news that Brian Fenton was bringing the curtain down on his glittering Dublin football career.
The news, reported first in The Irish Times then confirmed by Dublin GAA this morning, closes a decade that shimmered with success for the Raheny man and was defined by the midfield brilliance he produced.
Why make the call now?
The temptation in these instances is to look at a player’s age and make a judgement that is premature, but it is more instructive to look at the length of their career.
Fenton may only be 31 years old but he has ten campaigns lodged in the bank. That is a sizeable chunk of time to have devoted to a game that is becoming increasingly demanding for the players involved.
And these were not short seasons.
On seven occasions Fenton was involved all the way to the season-ending All-Ireland final stage, winning on every one of those occasions, while he twice bowed out in All-Ireland semi-finals, and this summer’s quarter-final loss to Galway represented the earliest exit of his Dublin career.
The talk grew after the 2023 final that he was going to call it a day.
Outside the Dublin dressing-room underneath the Hogan Stand after that win over Kerry, a pint of Guinness in his grasp, he talked to a group of us and explained just why he felt so joyous about this result in particular.
“I’m lucky enough to say I’ve seven All-Irelands now and it is the best, the sweetest of them all, without doubt. We got the band back together for one more hurrah.
“When you can get back to that stage, I think it’s such a genuinely, deeply rewarding feeling. Something that I’ll remember for a long time.
“I’ll go to bed with a smile on my face tonight thinking that Maccer (James McCarthy) went up those steps.”
Two months later, in conversation with Malachy Clerkin of the Irish Times, Fenton quashed any suggestion that he was shuffling off into retirement.
“I started in 2015 – next year will be my 10th season. And I’ve always had it in my head that I’d love to do 10 seasons as a Dublin footballer. Now, whether I do 11 or 12, I don’t know.
“But I definitely want to do 10. I’d love to look back and go, ‘I gave a decade of seasons to Dublin.’ That’s a very insignificant personal thing, obviously. But it’s something I’ve always had in my head.”
The clues were there in plain sight. He was true to his word, reaching that milestone of ten campaigns in blue, and now opting to depart.
He leaves having compiled a stunning body of work, perhaps even more so because his was not a talent that earmarked for greatness from a young age. A call-up at minor level eluded him, before he squeezed in an U21 campaign in his last year of eligibility with Dublin in 2014.
Fenton was part of a star-studded Dublin team that dismantled Roscommon in that final in Tullamore, he swiftly graduated to the senior side and his career trajectory soared from there. The Class of 2014 – Fenton, Jack McCaffrey, Paul Mannion, John Small, David Byrne, Niall Scully, and Cormac Costello – were at the core of the unprecedented senior dominance that Jim Gavin presided over.
And Fenton was a shining emblem of that, introduced to a Dublin team that were shaken by Donegal in the famous 2014 All-Ireland semi-final, and helping transform them into a powerhouse that ruled the game.
The numbers make for compelling reading.
10 Leinster titles (never tasting defeat in the province), 7 All-Ireland wins, 6 All-Star awards, and 4 Division 1 league accolades.
He didn’t suffer his first loss in the championship arena until August 2021 in that extra-time epic against Mayo, with Kerry (2022) and Galway (2024) the only other teams to cause blemishes to that championship record.
His greatness can be gauged by the fact that as his career developed, he was namechecked alongside Jack O’Shea in the debates over the best midfielder to have played the game.
They were tied at 7-7 in Sam Maguire wins, 6-6 in the All-Star category, with O’Shea ahead 4-2 in Footballer of the Year wins, the Kerryman judged on the old Texaco award, while Fenton took the official GAA-GPA honour in 2018 and 2020. Trevor Giles and David Clifford are the other multiple winners of that award with two apiece.
But apart from the baubles, it is Fenton’s style and command of midfield play that will be recalled for some time. He glided around the pitch, put in the graft in assisting his defence, was proficient in aerial battles, but most strikingly, he excelled when Dublin moved forward. His skillset was central to Dublin’s attacking moves in unlocking defensive screens, while he frequently supplied key scores.
The effortless kicking style in popping over a point with minimal backlift, like a vital second-half point in the 2023 final against Kerry, or his ability to ghost through to get on the end of passing sequences and find the net, like the efforts against Cork and Mayo in the 2019 five-in-a-row winning season.
Coming a fortnight after the retirement of James McCarthy, the player he worked brilliantly in tandem with at midfield, it has the sense of a major shift for Dublin, particularly with speculation brewing that others are considering their inter-county futures.
Fenton labelled McCarthy as the best the capital has produced two weeks ago.
Many observers would put the Raheny man in a similar bracket.
After a decade of stunning brilliance, his departure creates a void that Dublin will not easily fill.
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