INTERVIEW: Remembering, rejoicing and waiting for Sunday

The long runs don’t seem all that long any more and the sprints aren’t as draining. These days, Brian Farrell enjoys every moment in the embrace of Ardagh GAA Club. The young man who spends his days working with his own project management company on developments across the world, adores every moment spent on the football pitch and in the dressing-room with his neighbours and friends.

Brian’s training top is embroidered with DF. Some might think that was a logistical mistake, but they'd be wrong. Brian's beloved brother Diarmaid passed away on a July day in 2024, however, his memory is vivid this week as the club he loved so well prepare for Sunday's county final.

“Of course, he never leaves my thoughts and I wear his initials on my gear, but he'd be particularly excited this week. Ardagh GAA means so much to our family. It always did! Diarmaid and I spent so much time down the pitch when we were young lads. We were always down there kicking ball dreaming of big days and letting our imagination run wild. When we were 14 or 15 we were helping Michael Cawley put up a fence around the pitch and mucking in as the dressingrooms were tiled and painted. The pitch was 'our place.'

“We had started off playing in the Town Leagues in Ballina when Diarmaid was four and I was six and then Pat Dowling and Padraig Doherty brought us back out home to Ardagh for the U-10s with Ardmoy. We had great fun. Pat Dowling would be chauffeuring myself and Diarmaid and his sons Cormac and Gearoid around to games and he'd sometimes rope us into doing umpire when he was reffing matches too.”

​UTTER PRIDE

As the years passed, Brian moved away to study and work and Dairmaid played senior with Ballina Stephenites for a time, but came back home to Ardagh in 2019. He proudly wore the Black, gold and green as they looked to make an impression at junior level and he also coached some of the underage teams.

“We got to play together for Ardagh and we were so proud. I was away a lot in those years, but I was always going to come back home to live and play with the club,” Brian tells The Mayo News.

​UNFORGETTABLE

Then, Diarmaid passed away and the Farrells, the Ardagh community and friends far and wide were devastated. Diarmaid had enhanced so many lives – his smile alone could light up a room and the sparkle in his eyes was unforgettable.

He had been a beloved, cherished son, brother, partner and uncle. He had been a young man packed with potential, decency and ordinariness and he had been wing-forward in the black, gold and green jersey of Ardagh. He had created memories every day of his life and engraved himself in the minds of so many. None more so than his brother Brian. They shared the same birthday, two years apart and the special bond that some very fortunate siblings enjoy.

“The pitch was our thing. We had so much fun there. Now, when I'm training I'm clinging onto that and the hard runs don't seem to hard any more,” Brian explains. “I don't have my only brother now, but when I'm in the dressing-room I have 30 brothers. The club has given me and my family so much and that's what makes the GAA what it is.

“The GAA is hands-down the greatest sporting and community organisation in the world. The thought, care and love shown to us by the club in the worst of times is something we'll never forget. They dropped everything when Diarmaid passed and just minded us. After the burial we went for food and when we came home they had our house completely back together again – sofas, chairs, tables – everything perfect. It was just the nicest, most caring thing.”

​LONG JOURNEY

Over the years, the fortunes of Ardagh GAA were regular features of conversations in the Farrell household. Regularly David and Rosemary heard their sons explain the ups and downs of underage and junior football, but one conversation has stuck in Brian's memory.

“I'll always remember the night Dad and Tony Mulderrig were in the kitchen and Tony was saying the club might have to fold. Things were bad, numbers were tiny and we were nearly gone. I think it's important to remember that this week – we've come a long, long way since that night.”

PRICELESS SUPPORT

Brian moved back home in recent years and is extremely busy with his company Ardsa Project Management who specialise in turnkey design, build and funding advisory for community sporting developments. One of Ardsa's local projects was the €2.8 million facilities development at Westport United, but Brian always makes time for family and the GAA club.

“I'm very fortunate to have a very supportive wife, Sian, and our children Romy and James Diarmaid. And of course, the support of our parents particularly, our mothers Rosemary and Agnes, is invaluable.” That support allows Brian to remain embraced in the brotherhood of team and the journey they're on. He's well aware of the position they find themselves in and what it took to achieve it.

“This is year and years of effort, but it's also the fact that we dug it out this year. We went to Ballycroy and Achill and won both games by a point. That's how tight this championship is. Either of those sides could be in the final next Sunday if results had fallen their way.

"We know how special this opportunity is. We know the effort it took to get here. We know all the great people from the club who dreamt of this day and are no longer with us – and we know we'll throw everything at it. These are special times in Ardagh.”