Darren Magee just rolled with the punches this week. What else was there to do, given how tangled up he is in it all at this stage – a former Dublin footballer now seated in the command centre of Westmeath GAA.
Magee is Westmeath GAA’s head of games. On Sunday at Croke Park, the Westmeath footballers will play arguably their biggest game in more than 20 years – and in the opposing dressingroom will be Magee’s native Dublin.
During his intercounty playing days, the marauding midfielder actually made a cameo appearance in the Lake County’s greatest sporting story, becoming one of the vanquished Dubs in the 2004 Leinster quarter-final meeting between the counties.
A few weeks after that two-point victory, Westmeath would win the county’s first, and still only, provincial title.
READ MORE
“You try to put the bad memories to the back of your mind,” says Magee of that 2004 defeat.
“But of course that was a big year for Westmeath and it was an incredible Westmeath team, to be fair.”
Joe Fallon came off the bench and popped over a late point for Westmeath in that victory over Dublin. Years later, Magee would wind up living close to Fallon in Athlone, their children attending the same school.
Magee, an All-Ireland club winner with Kilmacud Crokes in 2009, spent the last few years lining out with Athlone – picking up a Westmeath Division Two league medal in 2023. He togged with the club’s juniors last season. But the boots haven’t come out this year, yet.
“There has been a good bit of slagging around the place this week about the Leinster final but sure it’s all part of it,” adds the six-time Leinster winner.
“Westmeath GAA pay the mortgage, but at the same time you never forget where you come from, so it has been good craic.”
He has been in his current role just over five years, but has been working with Westmeath since 2018. Building on the work of Noel Delaney before him, Magee hopes to establish a pathway that allows players in the county to fulfil their potential.
But if Gaelic football were a game of arithmetic, the numbers simply wouldn’t add up.
According to the GAA’s recently launched report of Ireland’s demographic shift (No One Shouted Stop – Until Now), there are 84 clubs in Dublin. Within that, there are 26,563 youth-male players and 8,414 full-male players. There are 629 Gaelic football teams and 514 hurling teams.
There are 46 GAA clubs in Westmeath, 4,390 youth male players and 2,041 full male players. There are 147 football teams and 69 hurling teams.
Dublin has 34 clubs with a membership of more than 1,200. Westmeath have none.
Magee previously worked as a games development officer with Geraldine Morans on Dublin’s south side and with Arklow in Wicklow, too, so he understands the broad range of challenges facing different areas.
“What you are trying to achieve is getting young kids to play hurling and football, but one shoe size doesn’t fit all,” adds Magee.
In the capital, there are 98,429 children between 0-5 years of age. In Westmeath, there are 7,027.
Dublin GAA has more than 50 games promotion officers operating in the capital. Westmeath’s structure incorporates four full-time games development co-ordinators, plus former county footballer Kieran Martin, who links up during the summer months as part of his job-share with TÚS Athlone.
Westmeath also have four games promotion officers, including two current county footballers in Luke Loughlin and Jason Daly. Another current player, Robbie Forde, is a games development co-ordinator.
In March, Mullingar’s Coláiste Mhuire won the Hogan Cup title, beating Kerry’s Tralee CBS in the final at Croke Park – becoming the first Westmeath school to win the All-Ireland colleges football title since the Carmelite College, Moate back in 1981.
Not only that, but the Leinster final in February had been an all-Westmeath affair – Coláiste Mhuire beating Marist College from Athlone. The Westmeath minors and under-20s both beat Dublin in their respective provincial football championships this year. Numbers, eh?
Only this week, Westmeath GAA announced the appointment of Emmet Corrigan as a talent development lead, a position in which he will oversee player development from under-13 to under-20 and beyond, bringing uniformity to that space in their underage structure.
“His role will be a bit like what Bryan Cullen is doing in Dublin; we’re trying to gravitate towards putting structures in place where we’re looking at our athletic development programme across our development squads.”
Coach education, player pathways, they are all fundamental parts in the ambition of ultimately enhancing the county’s flagship teams.
It would be a stretch to say Dublin’s flagship football team has maxed out in terms of its potential so far this season. They might enter the final as favourites, but at times in this campaign, the Dubs have looked rigid and unsure of themselves.
“For Ger [Brennan] and Dean [Rock] and the lads, they are trying to pave a new path with this team,” says Magee. “Outside of the old dogs, how many of them have won much silverware? So, it’s a big day for Dublin as well. They need silverware, they need momentum to kind of lift the doom and gloom that seems to be hanging over the team at the minute.”
Westmeath have beaten Dublin in the championship on only three occasions – 1931, 1967 and 2004. And they have never beaten them in a Leinster final.
“It goes without saying that a victory would do huge things for Westmeath,” adds Magee.
“Even by appearing in the final, it raises the profile of the players, it generates real excitement among kids getting to see the lads playing in Croke Park and on TV. That connectivity is important.”
Magee will be at GAA headquarters on Sunday, a man with a lot of skin in the day. The curtain raiser has the Dublin women’s senior football team facing Kildare in a Leinster decider. His niece, Lauren Magee, will be part of the Dublin squad after recently returning from a long-term lay-off because of a cruciate knee ligament injury.
As for the men’s decider, Magee’s nine-year-old son, having spent the first two years of his life in the capital, will probably root for the Dubs, but the six-year-old is something of a floating voter right now.
“I suppose it’s win-win for both of them, really.”
Perhaps for their dad, too, in many ways.
