AIB Ulster Club Senior Football Championship quarter-final: St Mary's, Burren (Down) v Scotstown (Monaghan)
IT is a sign of how long Declan Rooney has been about the Burren scene that he can still remember lining out alongside John ‘Shorty’ Treanor during his earliest days wearing green and white.
St Mary’s Park is not a place short on legendary figures, but Treanor’s is a name known the length and breadth of the county, and beyond.
The creative genius at the centre of so much of the club’s success during the Eighties and Nineties, the curtain was coming down on a glorious career when a teenage Rooney was just at the start of his.
Last month Rooney, now 34, lined out at midfield alongside Ryan Treanor – son of ‘Shorty’ – as Burren finally broke Kilcoo’s stranglehold on the Frank O’Hare Cup.
The great side of the 1980s, which included current boss Paddy O’Rourke, translated their Down dominance into Ulster and All-Ireland titles in a period of unprecedented success.
The class of 2018 begin their provincial campaign against Monaghan champions Scotstown in Newry on Sunday.
Growing up with the likes of ‘Shorty’ and O’Rourke, Rooney has heard all the stories from Burren’s glory days, but the club’s illustrious history has never felt like a burden.
“To be honest, no. Obviously you’re aware of it.
“The likes of Paddy and ‘Shorty’ and boys like that, we would’ve looked up to them. I even played a few years with ‘Shorty’ and Gavin Murdock when I was first on the scene.
“’Shorty’ was something else and you’ve Ryan there now so I’ve played with father and son. But no, you wouldn’t have felt that pressure.
“At the end of the day Kilcoo have been the top team in Down but obviously Burren had that great team in the ’80s and they were able to add a few Ulsters to that as well.”
A few? Try five from six years between 1983 and ’88.
“I’m 34 now so I’ve only five Ulsters to win to match that,” he says with a laugh. “It can still be done!”
After losing three of the previous six Down deciders to the Magpies, though, the scenes at the end of this year’s final showed exactly what victory meant to Burren.
Bridesmaids no more, they savoured every second because, as history has shown, you can never be sure when the next one will come along.
“It’s always tight between us and them [Kilcoo], so it was just pure relief to get over the line. You have to hand it to Kilcoo, they’ve been brilliant the last six or seven years.
“We just had to go out and play as well as we know we can. Last year there was a point or two in it but we didn’t play that well, so we wanted to make sure we brought our ‘A’ game.
“We knew if we did we could beat them.”
It was somewhat familiar territory for Rooney.
He was there in 2010 when Burren landed the championship crown for the first time since 1997, and remembers well the feeling of sheer relief that day too as Bryansford were edged out at St Patrick’s Park.
On a personal level, there was an extra motivation too.
Rooney, along with club-mates Dan McCartan and Kevin McKernan, had featured throughout Down’s run to the All-Ireland final – a run that ended in the narrowest of defeats to Cork.
Just a couple of months on, the thought of another gut-wrenching loss was simply too much to bear.
“I don’t think I’ve ever watched that final back and I don’t think I want to watch it back.
“We were so close, and if you look at the way football’s played now and the way the game has changed, it was definitely one that got away from us. We definitely should’ve won.
“So yeah, getting over the line with the club that year was special.”
Little did Rooney know it would be his last appearance in a Down final for a while. An ankle operation forced him out of the 2011 campaign, when Clonduff were brushed aside as Burren completed back-to-back titles.
And by the time they got back there, he had his eyes on another prize.
A carpenter by trade, work took him to Dublin as Ireland found itself in the grip of a crippling recession and, having relocated to the capital as a result, Rooney ended up lining out for the St Sylvester’s club in 2013.
A shoulder injury limited his appearances for the Syls. However, he did manage to make a mark with the Malahide men in his one championship outing.
Introduced at half-time in their quarter-final clash with St Vincent’s, Rooney held Diarmuid Connolly scoreless.
It wasn’t enough, though, as Vincent’s scraped through by a point - an important step on a journey that would end with the Andy Merrigan Cup on St Patrick’s Day.
“Aye, it went alright,” he says modestly of his battle with the Dublin star, who went on to score 2-5 in the All-Ireland final defeat of Castlebar.
“We actually could’ve won that game, one of the boys hit the crossbar with the last kick of the game. Gabriel Bannigan was the manager and Sylvester’s had a good few players there at the time.
“It was a good club, but it wasn’t the same…”
Home is where the heart is, after all, and within a year he was back in Burren colours. Still the drought rolled on even after his return, but Rooney never lost heart.
He knew the strength of the players around him and, more importantly, the strength of those coming behind. It was only ever a matter of time and, when they finally got their reward, it was worth the wait.
“I always felt the past few years that there were more championships to be won.
“Last year we could’ve won it but I always felt there was another one in us at least. You could see the amount of talent coming through here – it’s unreal.
“We were just delighted to win it, and to see everybody coming on to the field after, it was great.”
What Declan Rooney and the rest of Burren wouldn’t do to see those scenes repeated when they return to Pairc Esler on Sunday afternoon.
