Just days after Monaghan’s All-Ireland semi-final exit at the hands of Dublin, Sean Jones arrives in Inniskeen. It’s the Grattans’ turn for Cúl Camps.
There are 200 odd kids. 90 per cent of them know exactly who he is. The rest pretend in a juvenile scramble to fit in. The noise level multiplies, echoing from the stand to the pitch and back again.
Out comes a marker. Then two, three, four. The autographs begin, then the waving and shouting and impatience, and so too the inevitable idolisation of the status as the club’s sole Monaghan star.
He won’t be alone there much longer, you feel.
1938 was Inniskeen’s last SFC title. Michael D Higgins wasn’t even born. At eight years of age, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh was little more than one of those idolising kids down in Dingle.
This Sunday, Jones’ parish will be but a ghost town. Clones awaits, and a shot at history against a side he calls “the New Zealand of Monaghan football”. Scotstown, the gatekeepers, the barrier holders, the refusers of change.
Three quarters of a century Inniskeen have waited. Surely, even for a 22-year-old, that is somewhat tangible?:
“You do know about it, but you can read into these things too much. Around the village the banners and the flags are up. After 75 years, you’re aware of it.
“Is it added pressure? Not really. We don’t have anything to prove to people inside the county. We’re not expected to beat Scotstown.
“It’s a unique experience. We’re looking forward to it.”
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This championship will conclude just how it started for Inniskeen, bookended by Scotstown. While the former glided into a league final, the seemingly permanent Monaghan SFC favourites ended up in the relegation play-offs.
The opening round of the championship then saw the 2021 champions suffer another defeat, as Jones’ side made home advantage count in a 1-11 to 0-12 victory.
And yet, Scotstown find themselves here, as they always tend to do. Win on Sunday, and you can make it seven out of the last nine Mick Duffy cups that have spent the winter on the Tyrone border.
So how important is it to have that win over Scotstown in the bank? Or does it in fact hinder Inniskeen?:
“I wouldn’t spend too long thinking about that game. They were reintroducing seven or eight county players.
“It was off the back of a long county season. I found it myself and I was the only one in that position.
“Even that day, I think it was Conor McCarthy that had a chance to equalise, and then we went up the pitch and ended up winning by two.
“That game was eight weeks ago now, and on the big days, Scotstown know what it takes to win.”
Although Oisín McConville has moved onto pastures new with Wicklow, 2018 Ulster MFC winner Jones was keen to stress the Crossmaglen influence, with a little over fifteen minutes and a border separating two areas where GAA is more than the main thing. It’s the only thing.
Now with John McEntee at the reins, a consistent level of improvement over the past few years, and a series of successes at juvenile level, and there is a winning mentality in this dressing room like never before:
“Obviously, a few years back we would have had a reputation as a bit of a yo-yo club between Intermediate and Senior, but we’ve established ourselves up there now.
“We had two or three very strong minor teams that won everything on the way up. When those boys come through, all they know is winning.
“This year was our fourth year making the semis in a row, obviously with Oisín the last few years and John adding his knowledge.
“Those men live and breathe football.”
Although those consecutive semi-final appearances came, this year had a different feel about it. A win away to McEntee’s former charges Clontibret teed up a path to an automatic semi-final.
Testament to the strength of the group that Grattans had topped, it was Clontibret again in the last four in Clones. An early Dessie Mone rasper cancelled out a fast Inniskeen start, but they rallied, and more impressively exerted a control that made the result look secure even early in the second half.
There was never an indicator of nerves, or flashbacks to any of seven semi-final defeats on the hop, dating back to 1990. It seems this team believes that glory is the next step on their journey:
“At the start of the year, our aim was to get to a final. Our results have shown we’ve probably deserved that.
“Four years ago, we were happy to be in a semi. Ballybay beat us after extra-time that day, and we knew there was more to come from us. We had a hunger then, but we knew that nobody would remember us for that game.
“We were maybe lucky to avoid Scotstown in the knockouts this year, they’ve beaten us a few years, but we’re where we want to be.
“It’s going to be fine margins. Our aim is just to stay in contention, get into half-time with the game still in the balance, and see from there. It could come down to the bounce of a ball.”
Sunday will be the first time in 33 years that Inniskeen trot out onto the coveted grass of St Tiernach’s Park on Monaghan Senior Football Championship final day.
But if you want to get bogged down in history, you could cast your eye back to the championship of 1887, where a team of men in green and red won the first ever title in the Farney County, going on to represent Monaghan in Ulster the following year.
Those things aren’t lost on the locals, for Inniskeen is a land where football lives, and now McEntee and Jones and others are pumping the oxygen to see football breathe there once more.
Inniskeen, the home one of Ireland’s most famous poets, and how they would love the words of Patrick Kavanagh to come to life in The Hill, and the Pat McGrane Stand, and the iron house of St Tiernach’s Park this weekend:
“Come with me, imagination, into this iron house,
And we will watch from the doorway the years run back”.
