From Mayo Abbey to the Mayo Seniors

He has anointed the sick, comforted the mourning, blessed the deceased and absolved the sinner. But Fr Mike Murphy nearly performed a miracle the day he unearthed one of the best goalies in Mayo while managing the Mount St Michael senior girls team. On Sunday next in the historic city of Armagh, Laura Brennan will stand between the posts for Mayo in the All-Ireland quarter-final. Her selection can be traced back to the moment Fr Murphy picked her to play in goal in a well-remembered schools game.

He managed plenty of teams in his time - he even took over a crisis-stricken Mayo senior ladies side at one point - so the holy man was no bad judge of a footballer. But what did Fr Mike see in a teenage Laura Brennan that nobody in Mayo Gaels or Hollymount had heretofore? 

“It was probably the height at the time!” she laughs.

Reared on a farm near Mayo Abbey, Brennan’s earliest memories are of kicking a ball up and down a corridor with her father, Walter. Her footballing journey officially began at the age of six with Mayo Gaels, where she mixed it with the boys until U-12s. As ‘Gaels had no girls team at the time, she and a few others had to join up with Hollymount.

She played all her football out the field until she was half-way through secondary school. Then one day, Fr Mike Murphy took one stroke of his Navy SEAL beard, stuck her in goal for Mount St Michael, and the rest is history.

COMMITMENT

It's after 10 o’clock on Tuesday evening when Mayo’s Number 1 arches her 5’11” frame onto one of the picnic benches at the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence in Bekan to speak to The Mayo News. The sun is still out, Mayo have just finished training, and Brennan has her car facing east for Dublin, where she teaches second class in a primary school of 700-odd students near the Kildare border. 

At 10.35pm, a red van pulls up. “I’m locking up,” we're told. It will be after midnight by the time she and her co-pilot, Tara Needham, are back in the capital. They will be up again for work the following morning. Not a cent of expenses between them.

Brennan has been doing this since 2018, when she was a student in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick. And she wouldn’t change it for the world. “I do really enjoy it. As I said, it’s obviously hard, getting back up to Dublin at whatever time, twelve, half-twelve. You’re wrecked the next day getting up, but the group of girls that’s here, you want to do it, obviously for them as well as yourself,” the 25-year-old tells The Mayo News over a half-finished chicken stir fry.

“You’re pushing yourself each day knowing that you want to give your best for them. You don’t want to be letting them down either. So that, for me, was always in my head, just keep pushing on. The good days are worth it then. There is great enjoyment out of it. I love it, I wouldn’t not do it.”

There were years when she played second fiddle for Mayo to Aisling Tarpey, who plays with Foxrock-Cabinteely but is no longer involved with Mayo. But now, the tall girl with the big, fair head of hair is very much Mayo’s Number 1. Indeed, Brennan has kept green flags down on several occasions for Mayo this year - probably more often than her manager would like. Rarely was her shot-stopping prowess flaunted like during Mayo’s recent sixteen-point win over Kildare, when she made a string of top-class saves to keep the Lilywhites goal-less.

You’d think she’d have little to learn at this point. But with Lisa Reid nipping at her heels and ‘one of the best’ goalkeeping coaches, Michael ‘Slings’ Slingermann, putting her through her paces, Brennan has plenty to keep her on her toes. Even since she started with Mayo, the position of cúl báire has become more vital than ever before.

“The massive thing is the presence of a goalkeeper,” she says. “There’s obvious skills, shot-stopping, kickouts, high balls coming in, catching them. They are all, the fundamentals of the goalkeeping position, but presence is a massive thing, that you’re loud.”

SUMMERTIME

As of last Friday, the school holidays have afforded her the luxury of summer lie-ins. While she acknowledges the athletic benefits of ten-weeks repose, Laura Brennan certainly didn’t do teaching to be a footballer.

“I’m delighted that I did it. I actually couldn’t see myself doing anything else. I love working with the kids. I find it so rewarding,” she says. “You are introduced into a new group of kids at the start of the year in September and just seeing them grow and just seeing them grow into better people as the year goes on. It’s lovely to see progress being made.”

In recent years, over a dozen fighting-age ex-Mayo footballers have burned out, gone travelling or stepped back for one reason or another. Surely there are days when Laura Brennan must wonder if there’s something more fun out there for a 25-year-old woman with her life in front of her? “It is a massive commitment. At the start of the year, travelling is something I would have been considering,” Brennan says.

“But I made the decision to stick with the football. To be honest, I’m delighted I did. Obviously there’s then sacrifices you make each weekend, even during the week as well there could be something on that friends are going to, family occasions. Obviously if you have training on you’re going to miss that.

“It is hard, but I’m delighted I did commit to it. I love every minute of playing for Mayo. It is hugely rewarding. “When I was younger I always looked up to Mayo Ladies players and putting on the jersey and thinking, ‘Jeez I’d love to do that some day’. To be doing it now is a massive honour. It’s something we should never take for granted,” she continues.

“You’re going out there to make your family proud, your friends proud. That is a huge thing. When you do put on that jersey you give it everything. You leave nothing behind. I think once you’ve done that you can be proud of what you’ve done.” Roll on Sunday so.