Grá for the GAA... Gabriel Bannigan on the men who shaped him as Monaghan bid for Ulster glory against Armagh
HIS da lifted him over the turnstiles. The crowds, the noise, the crepe paper hats and flags in blue and orange… He was in the city, in Croke Park, at his first All-Ireland final… The All-Ireland final!!Gabriel Bannigan was a football-mad eight-year-old then.Now he’s a football-mad 56-year-old. That first All-Ireland final was Armagh’s joust with Heffo’s Dubs in 1977 and Bannigan, who has guided his native Monaghan from relegation in March to Sunday’s Ulster final against the Orchardmen, was supporting them that day. “We always supported whoever came out of Ulster,” he says.“So we definitely would have been supporting Armagh.”His late father Packie passed on his grá for the GAA to him and his late brother Owen (father of Monaghan skipper Micheal) and since 1977 Bannigan has missed just one All-Ireland final (Cork v Kerry in 2007).In the early years Packie was behind the wheel of the family motor but as time passed Gabriel who did the driving and there was always a big breakfast for the big day. “It was a great privilege for me to be able to bring my dad to the finals in later years,” he says.“I used to go over and pick him up on the Sunday morning and he’d have the steak on the pan.“My mother was dead at this stage, God be good to her, and daddy would have a couple of steaks on the pan. We’d eat the steaks and head up the road to the final. We’d stop at a couple of places on the way back home and one time we stopped at the Travellers Rest at about half-seven/eight o’clock.“We went in to get something to eat.“Daddy says: ‘What are you having?’“I said: ‘I might have that Chicken Maryland.’“He says: ‘What? Are you not having a steak?’“I said: ‘I had a steak at 11 o’clock this morning!’“He says: ‘It’s a good day you get two steaks.’“He was old stock, me father…”His dad would have loved the quarter-final win over Cavan and he’d have been out of his seat when Monaghan came from nowhere to beat fancied Derry in an unforgettable semi-final a fortnight ago. He’d have been so proud on Sunday when his son and grandson lead the county at a packed Clones. “It’ll be a very proud day to be involved in,” says Bannigan.“I’ll be thinking of daddy and Owen in particular in terms of the influence they had on my life and my life in Gaelic Football. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now but for the influence and the inspiration of those two men.”The Monaghan team that won National League and Ulster titles in 1985 THE first Ulster final he can recall is 1979 when Monaghan played Donegal. He remembers the old Hill in Clones, the massive crowd and the pandemonium as his heroes “the surprise packets” beat Donegal to win their first Ulster title since 1938 when they’d beaten Armagh.“I can remember all the great moments in my lifetime as a Monaghan supporter from I was a child going to games with my father in 1979,” he says and he rhymes off all those memorable days.The Centenary Cup final in ’84, the 1985 National League final win against Armagh, the 1986 final against Laois, ’87 when Monaghan lost to Cavan in the first round of Ulster in Breffni Park (he was with the minors that same day), ’88 when Monaghan came back and beat Derry in the final…“There’s not much in the last 50 years since I started going to Monaghan games that I don’t remember,” he says.“I suppose the fact that I can remember them all tells you what is so important about a day like Sunday.“They don’t come around that often so you have to savour them and make the most of them.”Ulster finals have come around very often for Armagh in recent years but they haven’t quite made the most of them. As we’re all well aware by now, this is their fourth on-the-trot and they’ve narrowly lost the previous three.This year even the staunchest Monaghan fan would concede that the Orchardmen look primed to break their losing habit. So what is Bannigan’s plan to deal with a side that has scored five goals and 65 points in their last two games?“We’re going to get a couple of Foxhound buses onto the pitch in Clones and park them up,” jokes Bannigan.In the era of the two-pointer, even parking the bus wouldn’t help and of course Bannigan and his management team will devise a more pragmatic strategy for Sunday. Whether it works or not remains to be seen.“As we do with any game, we will look at Armagh, we’ve already looked at them a fair bit,” he says.“They have threats coming from all over, they’re a very athletic team. The speed at which they covered the ground on Sunday against Down meant Down were chasing shadows.“They have serious finishing power from a range of areas – some teams have a couple of really big shooters but Armagh are getting scores from everywhere.“Armagh are humming, there’s no question about that and they’re raging-hot favourites.“We will give them due respect in terms of our focus on them but we will be very much focussed on ourselves in terms of our own performance and trying to get the best out of our players and our team in whatever gameplan we send them out with.“It’s an Ulster final, a derby, it’ll be a huge crowd and hopefully we’ll have massive Monaghan noise there as well, I know there’ll be massive Armagh noise there.“I’ll be hoping we start better than we did against Derry – if we get the start we get against Cavan and the finish we got against Derry, if we can put those two halves together I’d like to think we’re going to give Armagh a game. We’ll see.”Walking on water. Rory Beggan of Monaghan leaves the field surrounded by fans after kicking the winner against Derry. Picture Oliver McVeigh MONAGHAN caught Rory Beggan fever after the finish against Derry. A crazy, nerve-jangler of a game reached a crescendo when Monaghan were awarded a free within range of the Derry posts.Beggan did what he usually does, he stroked it over the bar with a languid sweep of his right leg and won the game for his county. A billboard went up near the bus station in Monaghan town celebrating what we already knew: The NFL’s loss is the GAA’s gain.‘Those Americans haven’t got a clue… No harm to them’ read the sign and there were also reports of a Beggan Burger at fast food outlets and videos celebrating Beggan’s ability to do just about anything. Beggan has been blessed with a remarkable ability to kick a football but his performance against Derry – coming out to win a kickout and playing a sliderule pass to Micheal Bannigan for the goal – was the result of some hard yards in training too.“Rory is walking on water at the minute,” says Bannigan. “The league game against Dublin was his first game back (after Scotstown’s run to the All-Ireland club semi-finals) and he has trimmed down since then, he put in a lot of hard work behind the scenes.“He would have come back in from the club campaign carrying a bit and he got injured as well so he missed a couple of games through injury. Those first couple of games he played we had to restrict him a bit because he just wasn’t ready at that stage to play the way he’s playing now. “He has worked really hard, he’s put the work in. Rory is very dedicated, loves his football, he’s a great leader in the group and I’m delighted with the work he’s put in and the shape he’s in at the moment. The football he’s playing is top class.”Beggan could have been lost to the NFL. He went to trials with Tyrone’s Niall Morgan and Down’s Charlie Smyth but ‘those Americans’ chose Smyth and he returned to his home sod. He won an Ulster title with Scotstown last year and is after another with Monaghan.“I honestly have no idea why he didn’t get a contract in the NFL,” says Bannigan.“I would have feared the worst and I mean that from a Monaghan football perspective. “You were in two emotions - Rory is a brilliant lad and you obviously want to see him doing well, you want to see one of your own doing well. “So you’re wishing him luck in that regard, but in another way you wish you had him back. I probably feared the worst because of what I know from Rory’s capabilities. “I suppose if Rory had been 22 or 23 years of age instead of 32 or whatever age he was at that time, I’d say they would have snapped him up. I imagine that might have just happened a bit too late for him. “In terms of his kicking ability, we can only speak about it from a Gaelic football point of view because that’s all I know anything about - there isn’t a better kicker in the game and hasn’t been in my lifetime.”Joe McIlroy was one of Armagh's 11 scorers against Monaghan at Clones in January. Picture: Oliver McVeigh BEGGAN was missing when Monaghan’s competitive season began with a tanking from Armagh. The Farneymen looked way off the pace that day in Clones and it set the tone for an arduous league campaign.Injuries and Scotstown’s run to the All-Ireland club quarter-finals denied Bannigan experience and quality and there were eight losses on-the-trot, including the McKenna Cup final.They were hard times for the Monaghan camp but the worm had begun to turn before Monaghan finally ended their run of defeats by beating Cavan in their first championship game. “Some of the players we got experience into in the league have benefited from it,” says Bannigan.“You saw that in championship performances: Cameron Dowd, Daragh McElearney, Oisin McGorman… “Oisin came on against Cavan and Derry and had a big impact. Robbie Hanratty came on against Derry and won a couple of turnovers and caught a really good mark… I think we got a two-pointer from it. “Would those boys have had that impact on the championship if they hadn’t got that experience throughout the league? Probably not.“So every cloud has a silver lining. It definitely wasn’t planned but there is no simple straight line going from A to B with any squad of Gaelic footballers, there are going to be a lot more twists and turns along the way.”There have been many more twists and turns this year than he was bargaining for. Last season ended with a very good performance against Donegal at the All-Ireland quarter-final stage and Bannigan couldn’t wait to get started again this season. “I wanted to get a few more players into the panel, I had plenty of conversations and I was really looking forward to 2026,” he explains.“We were back in Division One and building on the success we had last year but everything went against us. “We were missing 11 or 12 of what you would regard as your top 18 or 19 players for the entire league and we were missing 20 in total that would have played football for Monaghan in 2025. So it was a rough ride.”It’s sure to be a rough ride again on Sunday but you never count Monaghan out in a two-horse race.
