Mark Corrigan is confident Macroom can push on this season 

It has been a difficult couple of years for the Macroom footballers.

In fact, you could say it has been a tough decade or so for the Muskerry side. They haven’t reached the business end of the Cork PIFC since losing the quarter-final to Newmarket in 2017 and have ended up in the last two relegation play-offs. 

The proud Muskerry club, with 10 top-flight football championship titles to their name, will be desperate to get back on an upward curve again in the years to come. They have young players coming through but that will take time. Macroom ended a 20-year wait for a county minor title last year when they defeated Mitchelstown in the Division 1 football championship final.

Former Kerry star Aidan O’Mahony is heading into his second campaign at the helm of Macroom's first team and for defender Mark Corrigan, he is hopeful that progress can be made this year.

“Last year didn’t go the way we would have planned it,” he says.

“We got relegated from the Division 3 league but there was a bit of experimenting going on with the team. We didn’t put as much onus on results as much as we should have looking back. The championship was disappointing, we did have injuries but we certainly aren’t making any excuses. We found ourselves in a similar position as we found ourselves in 2023.

“We do have some really good young lads coming through. I think we have about five minors coming onto the panel this year. We have one or two lads also coming back from abroad. You have to be realistic going into any season.

“We would be confident of getting out of Division 4 of the league and then onto the championship, but our immediate focus is on the league. We will take it game by game, week by week, and see where it takes us. The hard work starts now."

In their PIFC group stage, Macroom will face Castletownbere, Kiskeam and Muskerry rivals Iveleary. Corrigan, son of former Cork and Macroom footballer Colman, is fully aware of the task ahead. 

“Three tough games. Hopefully we will have more luck in terms of qualifying out of the group. I joined the panel in 2017 and we made the quarter-final that year. We haven’t been involved in the business end of the championship since. 

“We had Castletownbere last year in the group and they beat us. They have some very good players in the likes of Fintan Fenner and Gary Murphy up front. Kiskeam are only down from Senior A, but they will have quality players and then Iveleary, that's a local derby. They defeated us narrowly in 2023. It’s all about ourselves, train hard and see where that gets us then in the summertime.

“We want to obviously do better than the last couple of years and I do think with Aidan O’Mahony in his second season with us and the young lads coming onto the panel that we can kick on. Whether that’s good enough to make the top two in our championship group this year remains to be seen.”