October 24th 2023 is a day that 25 pupils from Raheny's Gaelscoil Míde will not soon forget.
Their boys' Gaelic football team had managed to reach the Cumann na mBunscol finals day at GAA HQ, where they would come up against St. Joseph's NS of Clondalkin.
The northsiders were fulfilling the dream of pretty much everyone who's ever played Gaelic games: lining out at Croke Park in a major final.
With all the fervour and excitement, it seemed as though it might even be Gaelscoil Míde's day, as they strode into an early lead thanks to two goals from play and three early frees. At half-time, it was set up for the Raheny school to claim a memorable football final victory.
It was sadly not to be for Gaelscoil, as St. Joseph's kicked on in the second-half to take a four-point win. Their victory came despite some stellar performances on the Gaelscoil Míde team, as per the Cumann na mBunscol match report.
When the final whistle blew, the lads knew the Corn John Nagle trophy would not be making its way back to Raheny.
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The story behind that touching Cumann na mBunscol photo
One of the things which always makes the Cumann na mBunscol finals feel like massive and special events is the presence of GAA-accredited photographers on the sidelines.
In the aftermath of the final between Gaelscoil Míde and St. Joseph's Clondalkin, a quiet moment of consolation between two of the Gaelscoil Míde players was frozen in time and became one of the most memorable photographs of the Irish sporting year.
24 October 2023; Rhys Ó Mongaigh Cuidithe, right, is consoled by Gaelscoil Míde teammate Conall Ó Gallachóir after the match between St Joseph's NS Clondalkin and Gaelscoil Míde at the Allianz Cumann na mBunscol Finals at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile
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A poignant and uplifting shot from Sportsfile's Ben McShane, it shows #7 Conall Ó Gallachóir consoling his distraught teammate Rhys Ó Mongaigh Cuidithe.
The photograph was shared widely on social media. It adorned the front pages of national newspapers. It told a universal story about the desolation of defeat and the power of camaraderie.
We spoke to the mother of Conall Ó Gallachóir - the boy consoling his teammate - for the story behind the photo. His mother Caitríona Ní Dhonnchú had a privileged view of the moment. Not only is she the vice-principal of the school, but she is also one of the team's coaches.
Caitríona said the power of the photo lies in its simplicity, the visible camaraderie and friendship between the two players, and how it sums up their contributions to a special year for the team:
It’s the little head tilt and the little hand on the shoulder - it’s just a moment in time. That would have happened anyway, you couldn’t have set that up.
That’s the way he [Conall] is, that’s just what he did, and the photographer just caught it at that particular moment in time.
There’s another picture on Sportsfile of Rhys on his own. That shows Rhys in his devastation…but it doesn’t have the other part of it. There are other pictures where lads are balling crying, the face is red - you couldn’t be putting that on the front page of anything either.
It’s not everybody who does that either. He [Conall] said, ‘Well everybody does that.’ Not everybody does that, so many are too caught up in themselves that they can’t mind somebody else around them.
When I say my little fella oozes empathy, the other little fella in the picture Rhys just oozes GAA. As soon as he came into the school, the little tiny dot of him, he was going to all the Dublin matches, he knew all the players.
He’s a lovely little kid and they all get on brilliantly, the whole gang of the team. There’s no malice or giving out, no slagging or anything that it’s those two that are in the picture. It’s a really brilliant shot.
That is not to say that the shot of Rhys on his own is not special in its own right, capturing just how much the occasion meant to this group of 5th and 6th-class students.
24 October 2023; Rhys Ó Mongaigh Cuidithe of Gaelscoil Míde reacts after the match between St Joseph's NS Clondalkin and Gaelscoil Míde at the Allianz Cumann na mBunscol Finals at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile
Winning and losing is something that seemingly takes on almost life-and-death importance the higher up through the grades you go, especially at the top level of club and intercounty football.
Perhaps the beauty of Cumann na mBunscol is that the youth of the players allows coaches and teachers to encourage the children to be the very best footballer or hurler they can be, while detaching them from any pressure to win.
That pressure will of course come further down the line if players choose to keep up the sport - but for Caitríona Ní Dhonnchú, the atmosphere of inclusion created by Cumann na mBunscol is its most special aspect:
You have to give everybody the chance, because you don’t know. If you cut them down, you don’t know what that does to them.
Yeah, they might just stop playing football, or they might not ask to go in midfield the next day, but you don’t know what it’s doing to them and their little personalities when they’re 8, 9, 10.
Everybody’s brilliant! Everybody’s able to do everything!
And that spirit shone through in how the team handled their defeat to Clondalkin in Croker.
As Caitríona surmises, it wasn't the game itself that mattered to the kids who took to the field - it was the fact that they were there in the first place.
24 October 2023; Josh Ennis of St Joseph's NS Clondalkin in action against Conall Ó Gallachóir of Gaelscoil Míde during the match between St Joseph's NS Clondalkin and Gaelscoil Míde at the Allianz Cumann na mBunscol Finals at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile
For the students of these two Dublin schools, this was the hallowed turf where they had watched their heroes lift Sam Maguire just three months prior, and now they had the chance to stand where Stephen Cluxton stood, to play where Paul Mannion played, to experience a matchday just like Messrs Fenton, Fitzsimons, or Kilkenny would.
For the Gaelscoil Míde players, that is what they will remember of the day:
The winning and the losing is great on the day, but that’s not what they remember. They remember getting to go to Croke Park, they remember loads of people up there cheering their names.
One of the little lads who had played football and [a previous final in] hurling as well said, ‘we got the same medal for both.’ In ten years down the line, he has two gold medals. He won’t remember which one he got for winning the hurling or which he got for ‘losing’ the football.
They just love the whole experience of it all, it is brilliant. One of them said, ‘I preferred the hurling, because that was my first time.’ At age 12, he’s thinking ‘been there, done that!’ And then there’s kids that will never get to play in Croke Park.
It doesn’t matter what level you’re playing at, whether you’re at the very top of Cumann na mBunscol or whether you’re at the bottom. You get to play in Croke Park, and you’ve got your whole school there, everybody taking the day off, grannies and grandads coming.
It is especially remarkable a memory for two of the players in that Gaelscoil Míde team, with Conall and Rhys’ experiences of the Cumann na mBunscol final immortalised in one of the most powerful GAA photos of recent years.
Caitríona tells me that the pair continue to get a great reception from their teammates for their starring role and that Rhys himself is fond of the photo, even if it captures him in a moment of disappointment. Perhaps it is the consolation from his teammate and friend that makes it so special.
The photograph may have struck a nerve even stronger because it echoed another special image from the All-Ireland football final played at the same venue three months prior.
30 July 2023; Brian Fenton of Dublin consoles David Clifford of Kerry after the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship final match between Dublin and Kerry at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile
Two of the greatest footballers in the country and their experience was echoed in arguably even more poignant fashion by a pair of schoolkids in the very same year, on the same pitch.
Coincidentally, Brian Fenton himself plays for Raheny - the club with which Caitríona Ní Dhonnchú continues to play junior camogie.
She is quick, however, to make sure we do not mistake her son as a Raheny man - and says that his club Naomh Bearróg enjoyed something of a good-natured tug-of-war after Raheny shared a side-by-side of the two photos on social media:
One of the girls who’s in charge of the Raheny Instagram put that picture up. Underneath, they had the picture of Brian Fenton and David Clifford.
It’s a similar kind of pose and because myself and my husband Cathal played for Raheny that’s what she had.
I sent it into the Naomh Bearróg chat saying Raheny were on the ball - sure he was already up on the Naomh Bearróg page that afternoon!
I thought it was funny that she was like, ‘your Raheny connection?’ What was she talking about! Conall was saying, ‘I’m Naomh Bearróg!’ He’s a very proud Bearróg man.
In a year of memorable moments in Dublin football, there is something touching about the fact that one of the most impactful came at grassroots level, in a game which meant so much to the players purely because they were taking part in it.
That truly is the beauty of Cumann na mBunscol, and long may it continue.
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