Muff aim for Croke glory in All-Ireland Junior Club final

Memories of Naomh Padraig Muff personnel no longer with us will doubtless occupy moments of thought on the player and supporters' buses on Saturday as the Inishowen outfit become the first ever Donegal club team to play at Croke Park.

Memories of their beloved team-mate Evan Craig have been driving on the Naomh Padraig players in their march to the All-Ireland Junior Football final against Galway side An Cheathru Rua (15:10 GMT) since his death last September aged only 23 after a battle against cancer.

Four weeks later, his father Joe, who Evan once played alongside for the club, led out the team on Donegal Junior final day holding one of his son's jerseys as the Muff men went on to clinch the county title for the first time by beating neighbours Carndonagh.

The Naomh Padraig club was only formed in February 1989 after a number of previous abortive attempts down the decades to get Gaelic Games to take root in the Uisce Chaoin parish which hugs the south western banks of Lough Foyle.

"Camogie was actually played in the parish in the mid-1930s and there was a team known as the Maids of the Mountains who won the Donegal championship three years running," says current club treasurer Michael McMenamin whose organisational skills helped get Naomh Padraig off the ground.

Other sporadic outbreaks of GAA in the locality included a period in the late 1960s when Culmore man Tom Harkin was selected in goals for Donegal.

Later, Muff native John Bradley played for the county in the same period and into the early 1970s, having previously represented Wexford during a work stint down in the south East, although he never got to officially represent his home parish.

Kerryman Lynch key to club formation

In the early 1960s, John Bradley's mother had even saved up some of her housekeeping money to buy a set of jerseys for a bunch of local boys intent on forming a team and while that incarnation didn't last, Mrs Bradley was named the club's first president in 1989.

The first club chairman was an energetic Kerryman called Sean Lynch from Valentia Island who was a brother of the Kingdom's three-time All-Ireland medallist Ger Lynch and colleague of Michael McMenamin in the Irish Customs service that worked along the border.

"First of all, Sean was involved in athletics locally and then in 1988 he decided to try and organise an under-12 GAA team and I gave him a hand, among others," recalls McMenamin who was often seen at the right hand of Jim McGuinness in his role as logistics officer during the Glenties man's first stint in charge of the Donegal team.

"At that time, there were no facilities whatsoever and I remember we borrowed the jerseys from Quigley's Point Swifts [soccer club]. The transport to games was two Volkswagen Beetles so health & safety or safeguarding hadn't been discovered at that stage."

That under-12 team went all the way to the Donegal Final where they lost to Four Masters.

"That was the start of the club. We had great help from Tommy Byrne in Muff school and his colleague Kevin Diver as well, and Kevin became our first secretary and was secretary for 25 years," continues Michael.

"Sean served only one or two years as club chairperson [although he continued his active involvement with the club]. I asked him why he wasn't going forward as chairman again and he said 'unless we get locals involved, the club won't survive' which was typical of his forward and astute thinking."

With the club only fielding underage teams in its embryonic stages, matches initially took place on Scoil Naomh Brid's soccer pitch in Muff.

Games were subsequently played in a number of other locations in the parish before the club in 1997, thanks to local business man Jim McLaughlin, found a permanent home in Ture between Muff and Quigley's Point which now has two full-sized pitches in addition to spacious clubrooms and other outdoor training facilities.

With over 50 girls playing camogie in the club, including a number of Donegal panellists, and ladies football also thriving, females now account for more than 50% of the club's membership.

"We wouldn't be here without the sports capital grants that we availed of from government funding but we certainly also wouldn't exist but for the support we have received from the local community," adds the club treasurer.

"We actually were the first sporting organisation in Inishowen to have a club lotto and it was an idea of [club officer] Pat Keaveney and his wife Rosemary who had spotted one in Glenties where Pat had worked and where Rosemary is from."

Alas the club's principal pioneer Lynch died in January 2008 aged only 62 after a lengthy illness. Such was the respect that he was held in his adopted home and Valentia, funerals took place in both locations with Kerry GAA legend Mick O'Connell among those paying tribute at the Mass on the island.

Seven years earlier, Michael and his family had suffered their own devastating loss as his son Maurice - who played for the club - died suddenly after contracting meningitis and the Naomh Padraig's grounds were subsequently named Maurice McMenamin Memorial Park.

"The loss of Maurice was a big blow to us as a family and the club as well. He was 20 years of age."

Like Sean Lynch, Maurice will be in the thoughts of all the Naomh Padraig faithful who travel to Croke Park, who will include his brother Ciaran, who has joined father Michael in the club's officer class by undertaking the secretary position.

The journey to GAA headquarters over the past number of weeks has been something of an odyssey with two trips to London - amid last month's big freeze - needed to see off Tara in the quarter-finals after a nail-biting 3-7 to 1-12 win over Derry club Craigbane in the Ulster Final.

The All-Ireland semi-final was even closer for the side managed by Daniel McCauley as they beat Cork outfit Kilmurry on penalties.

Donegal panelist Caolan McColgan was among the three Naomh Padraig men to net in the shootout with Kevin Lynch also on target after his last-ditch penalty in extra-time had ensured the spot-kicks.

"After two previous defeats in the county final, it was fantastic to win the county title and Ulster really was bonus territory," adds Michael McMenamin.

"Now we're in the All-Ireland final at Croke Park and becoming the first club from Donegal to play there will be incredible."