Pat McDowell was going about his business on Thursday morning when he heard a familiar voice jumping out from the radio.
Muckalee captain Clodagh Hanlon was on air speaking about the club’s landmark All-Ireland football final appearance against Cromane on Sunday. Muckalee of Kilkenny, that is. The black and amber county, that most hurling of hurling strongholds. No country for the big-ball code and all that. But for this week at least, Gaelic football has been the only show in town.
For the first time, a Kilkenny club team – male or female – will contest an All-Ireland football final. And just to add an extra dollop of swash to Sunday’s historic occasion at Parnell Park (2pm), Muckalee’s opponents will be from that bastion of Gaelic football, Kerry.
“It has been a brilliant few weeks, amazing really” says McDowell, who has been managing many of these Muckalee players since they were togging out for the under-16s.
READ MORE
By winning the Leinster junior title this year McDowell’s side equalled Railyard’s 2004 breakthrough success, but no Kilkenny team has ascended to the rarefied air in which Muckalee currently find themselves.
“It’s a dream really,” smiles the Muckalee manager. “To be the first Kilkenny club to have got to this stage, it’s testament to the work of the players and coaches and backroom team.
“You do get emotional when you think about it because you know how much it means to the players and how much it means to their families.
“I have been involved in sport all my life but I have never experienced a dressingroom like the one after the Leinster final. The scenes were incredible, girls in tears everywhere, crying with delight, that dressingroom just blew me away.
“I told the players, ‘Bottle that feeling and take it with you, it will bring you a long way.’”
It has since brought them to a place no Kilkenny club has ever been.
Along the way to Sunday’s decider, Muckalee beat St Martin’s of Wexford, St Mochta’s of Louth, Raheny of Dublin, St Colmcilles of Meath, St Kiernan’s of London and Menlough-Skehana of Galway.
They’ve more than earned their place in the showpiece event of women’s junior club football.
And as for the plámásing talk of free shots and nothing to lose now, Muckalee have been too busy putting Kilkenny football on the map to locate this place some folk keep telling them is called bonus territory.
The Friday night after the Leinster final triumph, and with an All-Ireland quarter-final on the horizon, McDowell gathered the players for a meeting. After a few words, he opened the floor to former Kilkenny hurler Tommy Walsh.
“I’d just said that I wasn’t looking at this as bonus territory, we had been training away in the wind and the rain for weeks, so we were there on merit like every other remaining team.
“And when Tommy stood up, he just said pretty much the same and coming from him that made a real impact.”
Only two Kilkenny teams remain active in 2025 – the Danesfort hurlers and the Muckalee women’s footballers.
“Everywhere you go people are asking about the game, there is great excitement,” says McDowell.
“And there has been wonderful support from everybody in the parish and beyond in Kilkenny.
“Because it can be difficult for football in Kilkenny at times. You look at Mullinavat, they won the men’s senior football title in early May and then had to wait until November to play in the Leinster championship. What hope had they got really? So, it’s good for Kilkenny football to be getting some positive airtime and coverage.”
One of the few reporters flying the Muckalee flag over the course of their five in-a-row success at county level has been former GAA president Nickey Brennan on Community Radio Kilkenny City.
“Nickey has been following us for years now and he has really helped promote the team, there have been games where he has nearly fallen out of the commentary box with excitement. He has been brilliant.”
McDowell also managed the Kilkenny women’s junior footballers this year. His daughter, Laura, suffered a cruciate injury during that intercounty campaign and so has been sidelined for Muckalee’s campaign.
As for Sunday, Cromane will arrive to Parnell Park with an expectancy of returning back down the road with silverware secured. For if it was once true that Kilkenny teams don’t compete in All-Ireland club football finals, then surely it remains the case that Kilkenny football teams don’t beat their Kerry counterparts?
“They are going to be favourites but we have beaten teams from Dublin, Meath, and Galway already – we’ve beaten whatever has been put in front of us.
“We know it will be a massive test against Cromane, playing the Kerry champions is always going to be difficult. But ultimately it’s not Kilkenny against Kerry, it’s 15 against 15, that’s the challenge you have to meet.”
Muckalee have been meeting and overcoming such challenges all year.
