*Eibhear Quilligan celebrates in Croke Park. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
FEAKLE led the way across Co Clare in contracting All-Ireland final fever and the build-up in the East Clare village added extra motivation for the county’s goalkeeper Eibhear Quilligan.
In Feakle folklore, there’s names like Seamus Durack, Ger Loughnane and Fr Harry Bohan who made starring contributions to Clare GAA, within the club families like the Donnellans and Guilfoyles have been central figures at club and county but the trio of Eibhear Quilligan, Adam Hogan and Conn Smyth will now join the big names and arguably surpass them as All-Ireland winners.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Quilligan began to absorb the magnitude of what Clare had achieved after emerging victorious on the biggest hurling stage of them all. “You dream of it as a kid and you dream of it as an adult, there’s been years when we’ve been a nearly team and just losing out on great games but it’s great to come out the other side of it, it’s absolute dreamland”.
He felt their resilience was central to coming out on top by a single point in extra time. “Resilience, we were seven points down in the first half, we had a really poor start, we stuck in and Aido’s (Aidan McCarthy) goal was massive to get us back into the game and we kicked on from there, it ebbed and flowed from the whole way to the end”.
Were it not for his four saves in the opening half of the semi-final against Kilkenny, Clare would not have been in the All-Ireland final, never mind be crowned champions. He was as quick to deflect this praise as he was with his reflexes on the pitch when this suggestion was put to him. “That is what you are there, it sounds like a cliché but you are there to keep the ball out of the net, when there’s an opportunity to do that then you do your best to try do that, I’m delighted”.
Quilligan had to wait until he was twenty seven to make his championship debut and despite not getting selected as first choice goalkeeper at U21 level, the LIT graduate has not looked back.
How Feakle embraced the occasion of an All-Ireland final rubbed off on the custodian who works as a business development manager for ABC Nutritionals based outside Cratloe and who have Alphie Rodgers, uncles of Mark as one of their senior officers . “I’m thirty now and you learn how to deal with things pretty well, the sense of pride in our small village the last week or two you have to enjoy the build-up, you can’t enjoy it too much but the pride you feel for such a small village to turn itself out the way it did is just incredible, it is impossible to put into words”.
Adding to the magnitude of the achievement was the fact that he wore number one while Clare’s number two at corner back was his clubmate Adam Hogan. “It is special. Adam is at the other end of his career almost, it is incredibly special, I actually trained him to a U14 championship. He was well made before that, it is special for the club, for the people that have put huge work into us and Conn (Smyth) as well, it’s really special”.
