Martin: 'I'll remember this in the nursing home'

By Maitiú Monaghan

As his players leapt all about the place with a trophy, Donaghmoyne manager Paddy Martin was stood to one side, on his own taking the whole scene in.

In his pre-match notes, Martin had finished: "To all true Fontenoys alive or passed, hopefully the future of our great club is bright."

The Celt asks him if he can chat for a minute, and he takes a second to compose himself before speaking.

"Just feeling proud, and that’s it," the Donaghmoyne man begins.

"I suppose there’s nothing really else to say," he continues. "We thought we could win it, and we thought all the time we’d win it.

"It’s very hard to block out some of the outside noise that you’re not good enough and all that.

"I've known these players since they were five or six, some of them were seven or eight. I coached them in high school; I've coached them all the way up."

In his acceptance speech, Martin's joint-captain Ronan McDonald had praised his manager, saying that he'd taken over when other people may not have wanted the job.

"Ronan just got a wee bit emotional there," Martin laughed. "I'm sure everyone wanted this job.

"I actually wasn't asked, I put my name in because I wanted the job. I spent three years in Meath with Wolf Tones.

"At my age, before I hit the nursing home, it is nice to give something back to your own. I'll remember this when I'm in the nursing home," he added.

Certainly, all Donaghmoyne fans will look back on 2026 with a smile. The ladies side are through to an Ulster semi-final, the men's side are IFC winners, and the minors lost out in the Division 1 final just two weeks ago.

Martin believes that it is time for Donaghmoyne to consolidate their place as a Senior club.

"It has to be very slow steps," he explains. "I think it has to be: Can we just survive in Senior next year?

"We don’t want to see the Paddy O’Rourke Cup again for a long time, it's so hard to win Intermediate. I think there are some great teams in intermediate. I’m not going to start naming them, but there are four or five teams that could really win it if they got a break.

"You don’t want to go back down, and that’s going to take an awful lot of work next year."

Martin was also involved with Donaghmoyne in 2016, when the Fontenoys reached the Ulster IFC Final, losing out to Tyrone side Pomeroy.

Will they give Ulster another rattle this year?

" Yeah, we will. But to me - and I said that even before this match - more important is putting a plan in place to stay up next year.

"Listen, the boys will probably want to give it a go, but we want to prepare for next year."