BARNEY McEldowney is the most unassuming man around Sleacht Néill.
And that’s the way he likes it. The only reason he agreed to do this interview was because Paul McCormack wouldn’t.
The new Sleacht Néill manager politely declined but offered contact numbers for a couple of his backroom team.
So McEldowney drew the short straw.
Born and bred in Sleacht Néill and married to Ciara with daughter Erin, McEldowney tells you from the get-go he’s a reluctant interviewee.
But the more you scratch the surface and prompt, the more McEldowney’s raging passion for his club and the small-ball code reveals itself.
A civil engineer by trade, McEldowney has been there since before the club’s magical 12-in-a-row in Derry began
Go back further and he’ll gleefully skim over his own playing days in both codes.
“It wasn’t distinguished, and it wasn’t great,” McEldowney says matter-of-factly.
He was sub in the 1993 county hurling final that saw the Emmets overcome Lavey and which ended a 24-year wait for a county crown. Captain that day was Padraig Dougan, also part of the current hurling management team.
In 2000, he played full-back in the Sleacht Néill team where he played alongside his brother Patrick and is also involved in McCormack’s backroom staff. They beat Banagher in the county final before they were easily dismissed in the provincial series by Dunloy at Casement Park.
“Probably a day we’d want to forget,” McEldowney ruefully recalls.
In between times, he won Ulster with Derry’s U21s, drawing with Antrim in the final at Casement Park before taking the spoils on the holy ground of Sleacht Néill in a replay.
Derry went on to play Galway in the All-Ireland U21 series where McEldowney had the dubious honour of marking the great Eugene Cloonan, who would later become a three-time All-Ireland winner and Allstar.
McEldowney’s playing days wound down in the mid-Noughties, aside from togging out for the odd reserve match and being on-call for the seniors if they needed to fill out their bench.
“I really only have four hurling medals to my name as a player [1993 and 2000 county championship medals, a south Derry minor hurling medal and an Ulster U21].
“We were still committed in those days and believed we trained hard. But we knew there was a special group of players coming through and I had the privilege of seeing that early on. When my playing days ended in the mid-2000s, we all followed the leadership of the great Thomas Cassidy [club legend], so I was doing the weekend trips to north Antrim and the indoor tournaments.”
In his post-playing days, he describes himself as a “coach with a small ‘c’” and was inspired by the new batch of talent coming through at the south Derry club that included Gerald Bradley, Cormac O’Doherty, Brendan Rogers, Shane McGuigan, Paul McNeill, Proinsias Burke, Mark McGuigan and Meehaul McGrath.
McEldowney quips: “Sean Rodgers – who is Brendan Rogers’ father – continues to give me grief to this day for taking Brendan off in an U10 Indoor hurling tournament!”
As Christmas approaches, Sleacht Néill find themselves in the All-Ireland hurling series for the fifth time in nine years, taking on All-Ireland first-timers Sarsfields of Cork, who stunned Waterford lynchpins Ballygunner to win Munster.
After edging Loughgiel Shamrocks in the 2016 Ulster final, losing their debut All-Ireland semi-final to Cuala of Dublin was a chastening experience for Sleacht Néill.
They failed in subsequent bids to reach an All-Ireland final against Na Pairsaigh, Ballyhale Shamrocks and Ballygunner.
Spool forward to this season and they weren’t fancied to unseat Antrim champions Cushendall in a compelling Ulster semi-final, but came through with flying colours after extra-time - and showed incredible resilience to reel in Down champions Portaferry in the decider at the beginning of the month.
The wheel keeps on turning at the Emmets club as they make another assault on the All-Ireland.
“It’s the fruition of good coaches and club structures, I would say, plus a few special players,” says McEldowney when asked to reveal their alleged secret of success.
“I mean, there is no question Cormac O’Doherty is a special player. No question Brendan Rogers is a special player – and those players often get the headlines, but players like Oisin O’Doherty, Paul McNeill, Se McGuigan and Conor McAllister are equally committed. Awesome players. Sean Cassidy too…
“And then you’ve got the influx of your younger guys coming – Ruairí Ó Mianáin, Jack Cassidy, Shea and Eamon Cassidy, and then you’re into the even younger guys of Conor Coyle, Finn McEldowney and Cathal McKaigue.”
McEldowney was drafted into the senior managerial set-up in 2012 under the guiding hand of Mickey Glover. They exited the Derry championship to Kevin Lynch’s that first season but they came back the following year to win their first modern-day county title.
It was the start of a cool dozen titles on the trot, nine of which were masterminded by Ballycastle man Michael McShane, who knew the Derry circuit intimately having played out his latter days with Lavey.
McEldowney was a constant presence behind McShane.
Initially, McEldowney said to McShane he’d give it a year and ended up staying for nine more seasons alongside the Antrim man, and double-jobbed for a period with the club’s senior camogs.
“If you cut down into Barney’s marrow, it would be Sleacht Néill,” McShane commented.
“What Mickey McShane did for Sleacht Néill won’t be forgotten,” McEldowney says. “Building blocks. Foundations. He brought a belief to us.”
When McShane called it a day after nine fruitful years with the south Derry club at the end of last season, McEldowney had one foot out the door – until the players and new boss Paul McCormack persuaded him to remain on the backroom team.
“Every year you question what you can give,” McEldowney says.
“Personally, I was at a crossroads when Mickey McShane left. But when I heard what Paul McCormack was bringing, it was really building on what Mickey McShane had delivered.
“I’m Sleacht Néill born and bred. My father Francis played back in the sixties and has a few hurling medals.
“He is a Sleacht Néill man, he was secretary of the club for many years. He watches the games on TV and looks forward to ‘our team and how they played discussions’.
“Here, we have a sense of duty to Sleacht Néill. I had a sense of duty in that I didn’t want to walk away [at the end of the last season] and wanted to make sure they could transition to the next year.”
They’ve done more than ‘transition’ in 2024.
An All-Ireland semi-final berth is their just rewards for an incredible season to date – but they don’t want this adventure to end like it did against Cuala, Na Piarsaigh, Ballyhale Shamrocks and Ballygunner in previous years.
You ask what he gets out of being part of the management team.
“It does rival my playing days because my playing days were unrewarding,” he says.
“The reward for me was being there in 2016 [the club’s first Ulster triumph] and seeing Eanna Cassidy getting carried shoulder high looking up to heaven.
“The sheer emotion in Shane McGuigan’s face after this year’s Ulster final. Seeing Conor McAllister coming back from injury. Gerald Bradley coming back from a serious knee injury several years ago. I suppose the reward is also seeing young players coming through.
“You ask the question: why can’t we follow the success of our camogs on the All-Ireland stage? Why not honour the efforts of Thomas Cassidy? Why not reward the work of Barney Doherty Mark, Bernard and Declan Cassidy, the Francie Burkes and Gerry Dohertys and all the underage coaches…?”
For Barney McEldowney, his media duties are done for at least another decade.
He’ll retreat to being the most unassuming member of the Emmets club again, collating the stats beside the team physio, administrating the subs and passing on bits of information from just behind the coalface where Paul McCormack will stand in Newbridge on Sunday.
