Two clubs, and two men, cut from a similar cloth – the Ciaran Meenagh and Conor Laverty connection
Ulster club SFC quarter-final: Kilcoo (Down) v Loughmacrory (Tyrone) (Saturday, O’Neills Healy Park, 7.15pm – live on RTE2)
CIARAN Meenagh and Conor Laverty have been good friends for a long time – but they might not have expected to see each other again quite so soon.
Where county brought the pair together over the last two years, into daily contact as an upturn in Down’s footballing fortunes was plotted, club rivalry will see them trying to second guess each other at O’Neills Healy Park on Saturday night.
Meenagh’s time in the Mourne County came to an end in July when he returned to the number one post previously held in Derry during turbulent times. But, alongside boss Marty Boyle, his fingerprints have been across Loughmacrory’s remarkable rise to the top of the Tyrone tree.
A stalwart during his playing days, and from a family steeped in the club, he beamed from ear to ear when speaking to Paddy Hunter after Loughmacrory saw off Trillick to lift the O’Neill Cup for the first time.
“You often hear people saying it’s surreal and you can’t put into words… we’ve give our lives to this for 10 years – to build ourselves from where we were.
“I sat in that stand or on that terrace for maybe 20 county finals, and I looked at the teams marching around after the band, and I says ‘will my club ever be there? Could we ever have a day, even one day in the sun?’”
That day arrived a fortnight ago, pitting them into a first provincial SFC campaign – the newbies versus the club most familiar with managing Ulster’s terrain at this time of year.
Loughmacrory won’t have needed too much swotting up on Kilcoo. Indeed, Meenagh has had a far greater window than most into what makes the Magpies tick, having worked at such close quarters with Laverty.
His days of pulling the strings on the field may be drawing to a close – the handful of minutes at the end of a convincing final win over Carryduff was the only action he saw during the Down championship – but the 39-year-old’s influence on everything about Kilcoo remains just as great.
And it was his relationship with Laverty that convinced Meenagh to make the hour-and-a-half spin from the gates of St Colm’s High School, Draperstown to Down training just as the dark evenings were taking hold back in 2023.
The former Tyrone player’s wife, Orla, is originally from Loughinisland and, when training late in Ballykinlar, Meenagh often stayed with father-in-law and former Down county board chairman Eamonn O’Toole, who passed away back in March.
It wasn’t long after meeting Orla that he first crossed paths with Laverty, and the pair have remained in contact ever since.
“I’d have probably been a good source for Conor through the years, and likewise,” Meenagh said in January 2024.
“That man hears the grass growing and I’m probably somebody who’s pretty well connected in football myself.”
Meenagh was hugely influential in Down’s evolution over the last couple of years, in particular their attacking shape, as the Mournemen secured a return to the All-Ireland championship for the first time since 2019 – picking up wins over Leinster champions and Louth and Clare before just coming out the wrong side of titanic tussles with Monaghan and Galway.
“The addition of Ciaran gave us another injection of an insight into a team who had been at the top level,” said Laverty last year, “a person who had come from Division Four right through to taking a team to an Ulster title. That knowledge that he brought and also the edge that he brought.
“We have been friends for quite a long time and there are very few people that I would trust and look at to say that they are at the pitch of what I would expect.”
Ceilum Doherty’s transition into a raiding wing-back bore striking similarities to the threat from deep posed by Conor McCluskey as Derry rose from the bottom rung of the National League to double Ulster champions and genuine All-Ireland contenders.
The rest of Kilcoo’s county contingent – Ryan McEvoy, Miceal Rooney and Eugene Branagan – also worked at close quarters with Meenagh during that time, as did Shealan and Ryan Johnston and Anthony Morgan when Tailteann Cup success was secured in 2024.
To further the connections between the two camps, Loughmacrory’s goalkeeping coach, Thomas Mallon, and S&C coach Aaron Bradley, were both with Down this year.
“It’s a strange dynamic and you probably don’t expect it to happen,” Rooney told Gaelic Life earlier this week. said of coming up against Meenagh.
“He knows us very well and we know him quite well… there’s not too many men you meet who love Gaelic football as much as Ciaran and that’s probably why him and Lav struck it off so well.”
With the Ulster championship draw due in the weeks ahead, the paths of Ciaran Meenagh and Conor Laverty could yet cross in county colours. On Saturday night, though, only one thing will matter for two clubs – and two men – cut from a similar cloth.
