An alternative map of Ireland exists in the collective GAA psyche. You’d struggle to find it in an atlas; one area is not differentiated from the next by way of firm borders, but rather the iron-clad acceptance of tradition – whether it’s hurling or football country. Moving from one to the other is the GAA’s equivalent of crossing the great divide.
A native of Clooney, Frank Enright’s Gaelic games initiation came through hurling – the poison of choice in that corner of East Clare. But life conspired to pull him northwards.
“The two of us met back in the [Connemara] Gaeltacht when we were teenagers,” Enright says of his wife, Fiona, a Tuam woman. “We used to just keep bumping into each other every now and again. A good few decades later, we have three adult children and we’re living in Moycullen (Co Galway).”
He adds their move to Moycullen, a firmly football part of Galway’s dual landscape, came about by way of “lots of coincidences” as they had no ties to the area.
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He first moved to Galway in 1995, a golden year for the Clare hurling classes. For a few seasons, he managed the journey up and down to Clare so he could continue to line out for Clooney. However, the arrival of their first child meant it was time to find somewhere with less of a commute.
Annaghdown duly took him in and Enright was part of the side that won the Galway Junior A title in 2002.
“That was a great connection with a lovely parish and a lovely bunch of people,” says Enright, “but we didn’t end up getting a site there. I got a site in Moycullen and so we came here in 2006. We’re 20 years here now and we’ve raised our three children.”
Despite Moycullen’s appearance of being football-first, he was still able to put his long-honed skills to use, linking up with their hurling panel for the latter stages of his playing career. His place in the club was truly cemented when his children came of playing age.
“Getting involved in coaching here happened when I brought down my six-year-old and my second fellow, who was only three at the time. You discover, ‘hang on, there’s one guy here and he’s trying to manage a group of under-6s on his own’, so you become a coach instantly.”
The flow of volunteers in the GAA is often one-way traffic – those who go in rarely get out in a hurry. That eventually saw Enright take the reins of the club’s senior hurling team for two seasons, reaching the county preliminary quarter-final last September, where they fell to Loughrea.
While there are challenges to being a hurling club in a predominately football area – Moycullen’s footballers won the Galway senior title last season – the small-ball cohort aren’t looking for a tune on a small violin.
“We have less numbers and it’s certainly perceived as, I suppose, a lesser game, but (that’s) mostly from outside,” he says. “The hurling community here is really tight and doing really well. I mean, if you’re playing senior hurling in Galway, that’s as good as it gets anywhere really.
“To be knocked out by Loughrea [was disappointing] – and they fairly knocked us out, they beat us comprehensively. But [at least] we’re pushing to compete.”
Of that defeat to the eventual All-Ireland runners-up, he adds: “It does make it really clear where you are and where you need to get to.”
Moycullen may be something of an anomaly in GAA terms; a dual club in the west of the country which doesn’t have huge overlap between the panels, yet neither struggle for numbers.
“It does help that the numbers are growing in the parish,” he says of the community’s willingness to get involved, across the board. “It’s really helpful that the numbers are here. It means that the pitch needs expanding, so they’re expanding it, and if you have an event on or if you need to get a team together, you’re not wondering will we have enough.
“I often describe the GAA pitch down there as like a honeypot. When it comes to the slightly longer evenings, seven days a week there’s hardly an available slot on those pitches . . . that’s the enthusiasm that there is down there.”
“It just shows you how crazy sport is here,” he adds, noting it extends far beyond Gaelic games, citing former Republic of Ireland soccer international Julie-Ann Russell and world champion rower Fiona Murtagh among their local sporting stars.
“It’s an extraordinary location in that regard.”
Two decades on from his move to Moycullen, Enright says the club offered him an in to his new community. “It’s like, ‘can you play or can you help out?’. There’s a role for everybody, whether you’re a parent, a child, an onlooker, a builder – they’ll find a dressingroom for you to build at some stage.
“It’s given me a sense of involvement, and we talk about personal development for players, but I couldn’t ask for more in terms of my own personal development.”
