It was based in Clontibret, run by Clontibret and loved by Clontibret, but it was never about Clontibret O’Neills themselves.
A glorious 1994 run to the Ulster SFC final allowed Declan Moen to see the Ulster footballing landscape through a different prism.
Waiting for them there was Bellaghy, Moen fresh from picking up a young Diarmuid Marsden in the win over Clan na Gael.
Clontibret were scaling new heights, even with the mighty Castleblayney Faughs in their pomp.
The Ulster final wasn’t to be, and Kilmacud went on to beat Bellaghy in the All-Ireland final. For many it was gut wrenching, but it was all so eye opening.
1994 was an epiphany.
A few short years later, the Ulster Intermediate Football Tournament began not far from the Armagh border in County Monaghan. Clontibret to be precise.
Moen, chairman of the organising committee, had sown the seed that flourished into a tournament. It was official in all ways imaginable, but officially unofficial.
Hence why it was the Ulster Intermediate Tournament, rather than championship.
Year on year, what has become property of the GAA continues to aim skyward from those original green shoots and the imagination of a welder by the name of Declan ‘Willie’ Moen.
It remains the Patrick McCully Cup today, named after the great Packie McCully, a former secretary of the O’Neills club.
It was he who chose unmistakable Clontibret’s saffron and white colours. His reign began with a call for a “united front” the very same year that World War II ended. Symbolic.
It was he who led the charge, and away the boys went down beside the chapel to Sonny Geoghegan’s field. Soon, some of those boys would be part of a historic four-in-a-row winning side.
The cup was donated to the club by the McCully family in the 1970’s. There’s so much pride and heritage in this thing that will be held aloft on Saturday night.
Moen’s opening statement 25 years ago began with three short lines as Gaeilge, followed by two from ‘GBS’ as the programme says, a quote from George Bernard Shaw that summed up his ambition to make the Ulster IFC a reality.
“Some people dream dreams and ask ‘why?’.
“But I prefer to dream dreams that have never been, and ask ‘why not?’.”
This was a chance for teams to taste a little bit of that Clontibret magic of 1994 for themselves.
A rural village, they never had any divine right to be all-conquering, though their 17 county titles today suggest otherwise.
And better was to come in 1997. A historic year that brought 13 cups to the clubhouse. Work hard, play hard was Moen’s thinking:
“We wanted to go on holiday, and money was scarce. I had this idea of the Intermediate Championship.
“We actually only had one pitch at the time but I gathered up a committee, and we had the AGM in November.
“We then had a committee meeting in January. I told them we had every team in, even though only seven out of the nine counties had come back to me by then!
“But we had no issue getting everyone involved after that. It was £100 entry for teams at the time, but I think we raised £17,000.”
A week in The Canaries duly came, after a huge effort from players in organising a hugely successful first edition.
It’s as coincidental as it is typical that the original primary sponsor of the tournament was Bank of Ireland and their district manager Gabriel Bannigan.
Or as he is now known, Monaghan senior football manager Gabriel Bannigan. A small county in a small world.
And it was another future Farney manager in the shape of Séamus McEnaney who was player-manager of Monaghan’s first representatives, Corduff.
The pre-tournament pic of Bannigan and ‘Banty’’s brother Frank with the Packie McCully Cup was about all that could bind a Corduff and an Aughnamullen man together at the time as Bannigan knows too well:
“’Banty’ actually sent me a photo recently of me and Frank (McEnaney, Séamus’ brother) with the cup, saying it’s great to see an Aughnamullen man presenting a Corduff man with a cup!
“I’ll have to get back to him, because I don’t think Corduff actually won it that year!
“I remember ‘Willie’ (Declan Moen) as one the drivers of it. Declan Brennan came to us to see would we sponsor it, only a small thing at the time.
“It’s a great honour, Junior, Intermediate or Senior, to win a county title. To go on and represent Monaghan in Ulster is the icing on the cake, it means a lot.
“Even myself more recently with Aughnamullen, the year we won the Junior there was no Ulster series because of Covid.
“That was a massive disappointment after winning the county final by 21 points or whatever it was.
“We would have relished that chance, but so be it, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
Liatrioim Fontenoys’ faithful will recall fondly their journey to become the province’s first Intermediate champions back in 1999, with Aidan O’Prey scoring four goals on their run to the final.
In 2000, Declan Bonner kicked 0-11 for Na Rossa, but ultimately it was Brackaville who went on to seize glory.
Included in the 2001 programme is a competition run by The Northern Standard to win dinner for two in Castleblayney’s Hope Castle, the same castle left almost destroyed by a blaze nine years later.
The quiz questions are amusing in the sense they are only a Google away today. Back then your answers were to be posted. How times have changed as Moen well knows:
“The northern teams in particular were great for arriving in full tracksuits. The first year we had man of the match awards, we had watches with the GAA badge, teams would get meals after games.
“After it ended teams were ringing us, mad to get playing.
“We got great interest in the papers. It started in February, so there wasn’t much else going on at that time of year.”
In 2001 it was ironically this year’s Junior finalists Craigbane who bettered Monaghan’s representatives Inniskeen, though in 2003 the Farney’s Sean Mac Diarmada of Threemilehouse overcame Drumgoon.
Glenfin of Donegal won the 2002 tournament, but Cavan’s Drumgoon are an interesting link to the establishment of the junior tournament that began in Cremartin, a club in the same parish as Clontibret, just five minutes over the road.
Now chairman of the Monaghan County Board, Declan Flanagan played a huge role in the growth of the Paul Kerr Cup, a trophy named after the tragic passing of Paul Kerr in the area.
And as Naomh Pádraig lifted the cup just a matter of weeks ago, it was Paul’s brother Declan, a proud Cremartin man on hand to present the trophy to Dermot Keaveney along with Ulster GAA President Ciaran McLaughlin.
By 2004, both the Junior and Intermediate tournaments were taken over by the GAA.
Moen understands the principles behind that move, but the manner in how the tournament changed hands was ‘disappointing’:
“It was disappointing that we lost it. Obviously financially, but also it was really enjoyable to organise, the buzz was unreal and it was very player-led.
“It’s fantastic now that players have the chance to go and play in Croke Park at Junior and Intermediate level, but I just don’t feel we got the acknowledgement from the GAA that we deserved.”
There was little to no say for Clontibret or Cremartin once the decision was taken for a motion at GAA Congress, one which passed under the helm of GAA President Seán Kelly.
Now a member of European Parliament, fellow Kerryman Pat Spillane wrote a column in recent weeks praising Kelly’s leadership:
“In my opinion, (Seán) Kelly’s greatest legacy is opening up the club championships to junior and intermediate. Small clubs can dare to dream about playing in headquarters.”
In many ways that wasn’t Seán Kelly’s dream however. It was a tactical decision to govern what was already there, a political move even, to appeal to the masses with a championship that also had a clear financial benefit for the association.
And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with any of that.
It just could have exchanged hands with a little more dignity and a little more thanks in an association that is the heartbeat of small rural places like Clontibret, Cremartin, Drumgoon, Brackaville, Liatroim or any of the rest of them.
It all got a little too corporate a little too quickly in a world that did likewise.
A little bit of character has been lost in the professionalism of it all.
Moen recalls a trip to China where he met a Tyrone man. Small talk went back and forth.
Low and behold it was a Brackaville man who had played in Clontibret. He’d actually won man of the match in one game.
And who was beside him in the photo presenting that award? Willie Moen.
So as Arva and Ballinderry prepare to compete for the Patrick McCully Cup, in victory or in defeat they will be far more like Willie Moen than they will ever be corporate.
The GAA is all about its members, from top to bottom. Where we all belong, as they say.
A quarter of a century on from the first Ulster Intermediate club final, there will be many who will sit inspired in Omagh, just as they used to in Clontibret and Cremartin.
And the words of George Bernard Shaw will come to life again as they dream dreams that have never been, and then they might ask themselves, why not?