When Kilmurry Ibrickane’s newest member Joe Campbell was born almost 18 years ago, Enda Coughlan had already garnered his first county senior medal the previous Autumn. On Sunday, he bids for a historic tenth title and in typical ageless fashion, is as influential as ever in Kilmurry Ibrickane’s engine room as the Clare selector continues to pull the strings for the defending champions.
So what is it that keeps Coughlan coming back for more?
“Look, as I keep saying to the younger lads, these days might’t last forever and I think definitely as you get older, you appreciate it a lot more heading into these games.
“Look, if you don’t win a final, you may as well have been beaten in the first round, that’s my own opinion. I mean it’s great getting to finals but if you don’t win them, they’re a tough blow to take so with a good few younger lads coming through at the moment, hopefully they’ll like these county final days, stay playing for a few years and hopefully the club will keep progressing.
“That’s what a club is all about but who knows what might happen in the future. I mean the population back here probably isn’t what it used to be and lads are commuting to work, living in towns or living away so it’s not easy to keep the group together.
“You see a lot of clubs in West Clare amalgamating at underage and we’ve been lucky enough here that we haven’t had to do that yet but who knows what the future holds.
“So that’s why I keep saying to the lads to enjoy it while we’re there and try to win as much as we can because you don’t know what’s around the corner.”
Coughlan along with Michael O’Dwyer, Evan Talty and Mark Killeen are the only survivors from the Kilmurry Ibrickane side that last met Éire Óg in a final in 2004 which turned out to be current manager Aiden Moloney’s last as a player.
“I seemed to have played with most of the managers lately.” Quipped Coughlan.
“I remember the first day in 2004, it seemed as if we were dead and buried by half-time and we just said that we’ve got to go out and play for pride more than anything. But we managed to get two goals at the start of the second half through Johnny Daly and Paul O’Dwyer and we ended up being a point ahead in injury-time and they had to draw it with a free at the end.
“In the replay, we just took off from the start. I remember I got a goal early on and we were well up at half-time before Éire Óg came back into it to get within a point and I think we just got a point of two at the end just to see it out by two.
“Our year took off from there as we ended up winning a Munster title and contested the All-Ireland Semi-Final. So that kind of sums up what I was saying about making the most of your opportunities as we probably should have been beaten the first day in the county final and ended up closer to being in an All-Ireland final.”
Reminiscing through history won’t count for much on Sunday though according to Coughlan as he knows from the Clare camp what exactly is coming down the tracks in the final.
“Bar three or four of us, none of the rest of our lads or Éire Óg will probably even remember that 2004 game, they’re that young, so it’s fair to say that Sunday will take on a different story.
“Seanie Buckley would be a good friend of mine and you can see the Drom-Broadford style in Éire Óg this year in the way they drop back and then break at pace. His footprint is all over them and something like that could be the making of their team as they have the talent.
“I would have seen a lot of them with Clare and they’ve a seriously talented squad. For the last few years, I would have been watching them and waiting for them to come through. And obviously now I hope it takes them another year to come through but they have serious quality and strength-in-depth from the bench so we have to be ready to battle.”

by Eoin Brennan