AIB GAA Ulster Intermediate Club Hurling Championship semi-final:

Eire Og, Carrickmore 3-16 Oisins, Glenariffe 2-18

Going in at half time of Saturday’s Ulster Intermediate semi-final against Tyrone champions Carrickmore there must have been many among the Glenariffe fans whose thoughts turned towards a final in two weeks’ time. The Oisins led by five, and thought they had goalkeeper Paul McMullan to thank for the gap being that wide, they still appeared to be in a good place.

What followed left us wondering what had happened as Carrickmore came out of the changing room a different team. Everything they did was positive and their constant running at the Oisins defence caused major problems throughout that second period and the five point lead soon disappeared, despite Glenariffe adding to their tally when Seanie McIntosh and Orrin O’Connor sent over.

A goal from right half forward Aidan Woods in the 37^th minute really set the comeback alight as it closed the gap to the minimum, and though Glenariffe responded with two points at the other end, one from Alex O’Boyle and the other from his brother Michael that, could well have been a goal.

Fifty minutes in the Tyrone champions went ahead again when right half back Dean Rafferty smashed a penalty high into the corner, despite a brilliant effort from Oisins keeper Paul McMullan who got his stick to it, but couldn’t prevent it from entering the net. A minute later the Tyrone men were four to the good when corner forward Shea Munroe found acres of space before firing over, but three minutes later Glenariffe were thrown a lifeline when Seanie McIntosh got through for his team’s first goal. When he went past the full-back and the goalkeeper a minute later the Oisins fans were on their feet, but his shot from the narrowest of angles hit the side netting and instead of being two clear they were still a point adrift.

It was like the air beings sucked out of their challenges and in the final minutes Carrickmore pushed on with three points on the trot from Woods, Munroe and the excellent Kelly, his eighth of the game.

With the one minute of scheduled extra time almost up the Oisin gave their fans a glimmer of hope when an Orrin O’Connor pass from virtually on the endline was fired home by Colla Ward, leaving just a point between them, but the referee blew for time on the puc-out and Carrickmore celebrated a great comeback win.

After a shaky start when they fell 0-03 to 0-01 behind in the third minute the Oisins began to find their form and well taken points from Calum McIlwaine, Michael O’Boyle, Orrin O’Connor (2) and Colla Ward got their team going. Kelly levelled for Carrickmore on twelve minutes but five points without reply from O’Connor, Alex O’Boyle, Michael O’Boyle and a a great score from midfielder Oliver Kearney pulled the Antrim champions five clear and hopes were high going in at the break with a five point cushion.

All was to change though in the second half as the rejuvenated Tyrone men turned the game on its head and deservedly secured a place in the final in two weeks, time. It will take some time for this Oisins team to get over the dissapointment of this defeat but in time they will look back with pride on a great season which brought them the Division 2 League title and county Intermediate crown

Eire Og: C McElhatton; C Kerr, O Mc Kee, C Mc Kee; D Begley 1-0, C Munroe D Rafferty 1-0; F Hurson, B Mc Gurk; C Grogan, A Kelly 0-8, A Woods 1-2; O Daly 0-1, A Crossan, S Munroe 0-5

Subs: C Sweeney For Hurson, S Grogan For Daly, J Kelly For Kerr, M Coyle For McGurk, S Sweeney For Crossan

Oisins: P Mc Mullan, D Kearney, M Haughey, C Devlin, D Kearney, N Magee, C McIlwaine 0-1, O Gillan, O Kearney 0-1, O O’Connor 0-3, D Kearney, M O’Boyle 0-6, A O’Boyle 0-2, S Mc Intosh 1-2, C Ward 1-2

Subs: P Ward For Kearney

Referee: P Owens

TO SEE MORE PICS FROM THIS GAME CLICK ON HTE LINK BELOW

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Another great night at the Devenish Antrim Club All Star awards where guests of honour, Kilkenny legend Richie Power and new Antrim Football manager Mark Doran presented the awards to the top fifteen footballers and hurlers at a Gala Dinner in the popular west Belfast venue.

MC for the evening, BBC’s Mark Sidebottom chatted with both guests and did a in depth interview with Richie Power about his sparkling career with the Cats which brough him eight All Ireland medals

The 2025 Devenish Antrim Club Football All Stars

The top awards winners Seaan Elliott of Dunloy who was Football of the Year award from Antrim senior football manager Mark Doran and Conor Johnston of St John’s who received the Hurler of the Year award from Richie Power

The 2025 Devenish Antrim Club Hurling All Stars

The top scorer awards in hurling and football went to James McNaughton of Loughgiel (who shared the award with Alex O’Boyle of Oisins of Glenariffe (who was unable to attend) and

TO SEE MORE PICS FROM THE ALL STARS NIGHT CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW

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Above – St John’s manager Gerard ‘Cut’ Cunningham

Ulster Senior Hurling Championship – Semi Final

St John’s vs Setanta

Date: Saturday 15 November – Throw-in : 6pm

Venue: Owenbeg, Dungiven

Brendan McTaggart speaks with St John’s manager, Gerard Cunningham as they look forward to Saturday’s semi final against Donegal champions Setanta.

Sunday will mark four weeks since that memorable day at Páirc Mac Uílín when St John’s became ‘Kings of Antrim’ and on Saturday evening, they begin their journey for the Four Seasons Cup.

The Monday Club has ended on the Whiterock Road and all thoughts of that have been cast to one side as the Johnnies set their sights a little further.  Owenbeg is the venue as Gerard Cunningham takes his side to face Donegal champions, Setanta. 

The Donegal men have been crowned champions of Tír Chonaill 18 times with their most recent success coming a win against Letterkenny side, St Eunan’s.  Setanta are no strangers to Antrim teams with Gort na Mona and Shane O’Neill’s coming up against them in the Ulster junior championship in recent times (2017 and 2022).  They’ve had success at junior and intermediate level in the recent past, winning Ulster Junior championship in 2017 and 2022 and the Intermediate in 2023 where they beat a strong Éire Óg Carrickmore side in the final.

It’s fair to say their hurling trajectory is on an upward curve for a while now and when we spoke with St John’s manager, Gerard Cunningham, he said they are going into the unknown a little: “We don’t know a huge amount about them to be honest.  We got our hands on a video of the Donegal county final, it was played back in August.  They’re a good hurling side, very physical and fit.  They have had a lot of time to prepare for this game and to get ready for us but as it always has been, our main focus is on us and what we want to do on the day.”

While Cunningham’s focus is one his side, he also told us that they will be treating this fixture with the upmost respect.  He continued: “We can’t be looking any further than this game.  This is our first time at this stage in 50 odd years so we have no right to be looking any further.  They are county champions and there on merit.  They’ve played in Ulster before at Intermediate so we’ll be treating them and preparing for them like we have any of the knock out games in the Antrim championship.”

The conundrum facing all teams at this stage has always been the same.  How do we best prepare and deal with the break.  That hasn’t been a problem for the Corrigan Park side who have welcomed the gap since their final win against Loughgiel.  52 years is a long time between coronations and with so much heart breaking losses for this group of players in the very recent past, the Monday Club might have went into extra time for the Johnnies.  Cunningham said that he let his players ‘off the leash’ to celebrate with a view to getting back to business a week later: “It’s a long time (four week break) but to be honest, we needed it.  The county final was a tough, physical battle and the lads were sore after it.

“We told the lads to go out and enjoy the first week after the county final but the second and third weeks were back to hard training and the last week has been about preparing for the match ahead.

“We’ve a few niggles from the Loughgiel game and we’ll have to wait to see how a couple of lads come through the warm up on Saturday before sorting out our 15.  They’ve all been training, but we’ll need to see what way they are before making that call.”

Owenbeg is said to be located at the heart of the Oakleaf county and makes it the perfect place to bridge the chasm between the north and south of the county.  It was used for all of the senior hurling and football matches throughout the Derry championships and has seen a few Ulster matches also. 

With the rain there has been in the last week, all ears will be pinned back to hear if there is a change of venue for Saturday’s game.  Nothing has been whispered as yet, quite surprising given this is the second of a doubleheader on Saturday afternoon but Cunningham had nothing but praise for the Dungiven venue: “We’re happy enough with Owenbeg.  When we heard it was the Donegal champions, we had an idea that’s where it was likely to be played.  It’s a great set up and as good as anywhere else in Ulster for a game like this, along with the likes of the Athletic Grounds in Armagh.”

With the journey the Johnnies have been on to reach the hurling summit of the Antrim hurling landscape, some might be forgiven for thinking that anything thereafter as a bonus but ‘Cut’ said they’ve parked the Volunteer Cup win and are now they are here, they have their sights set on bigger things: “We don’t see it as bonus territory, absolutely not.  Winning Antrim was fantastic but now we’re here, we want to go out and win Ulster, that being said, we’re not looking beyond this semi final but hopefully we can go out and do the business.”

The last time St John’s played in an Ulster club hurling semi final, they faced Ballygalget.  That match is almost 52 years to the day when they take to the field against Setanta (18 November 1973).  They would go on to win that game against the Down men (9-07 to 2-02) before beating Derry opposition in the final.

The parallels can be seen, it’s up to this crop of St John’s players to go out and make their own piece of Ulster history.  That journey begins on Saturday.

Above – Moya Forde (Third from right) on the Antrim team who beat Dublin by 3-9 to 4-02 in the 1967 All Ireland final in Croke Park.

By Seamus McAleenan

An Antrim camogie legend, described once by a Dublin journalist after an All-Ireland semi-final as “the best camogie player I have ever seen”, has died early on Thursday in Massereene Manor Nursing Home.

Moya Forde played in her first All-Ireland senior camogie final in 1950 and her last in 1969. Over that period of time Antrim featured in 11 All-Ireland finals and apart from the first half of the 1950 game, Moya was at full-back in all of those.

Dublin were the dominant force during her two decades playing at the top level, winning 19 titles 1948-1966. They defeated Antrim in eight finals and a number of semi-finals as well. But Antrim overcame them in the 1956 semi-final and went on to beat Cork in the final.

Eleven years later the final went to a replay that was also played in Croke Park and Moya picked up her second national medal as well as anchoring the Ulster team to its only Gael Linn interprovincial title up to 2006.

She first began playing on a senior team in The Braid as a goalkeeper when she was 12 years old “because they were afraid I would get hurt outfield” and progressed to St Louis Ballymena where she featured on three Ulster senior winning teams.

The numbers were not there to sustain a team in The Braid and she and her sister Fionnula joined Ahoghill where Moya played on their only two Antrim senior championship winning sides, 21 years apart. Ahoghill went on to claim the Ulster club title in 1969, beaten by a Limerick side in the All-Ireland semi-final.

A teacher, Moya coached St Mary’s Clady to the secondary schools’ Ulster championship title and Fr Cavlan Cup on a number of occasions in the 1960s and 1970s before moving on to her alma mater St Louis Ballymena where she remained for the rest of teaching career.

Predeceased by her siblings, Cáitlín, Liam, Donough and Fionnuala, all of whom played sport at a high level, Moya died following a short illness. Her funeral will take place SATURDAY 15^th November to St Patrick’s Church, The Braid for Requiem Mass at midday and burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery.

A Mhuire na nGael, guigh ar a son.