100 miles from home, Garnish continue the fight for survival

Few clubs have found themselves in a situation as precarious as the one Garnish faced at the start of 2025.

On the edge of the Beara Peninsula, fielding a team in the Junior B Football Championship had become an ask that was starting to look too great.

Training numbers fluctuated. Availability was never guaranteed. Survival itself become uncertain.

But as the football based club in Allihies head into 2026, that future looks a little less dark and a little more optimistic.

The work that’s gone in across 2025 to keep the club afloat is making a noticeable difference. Though as Garnish chairman and former Cork footballer Ollie Rue O’Sullivan explains, that work is not yet finished.

“We were in so much difficulty last year,” he begins. “We decided to be more formal in our hybrid status where we'd have a kind of a group of guys that would train regularly in Cork and that that would be their training base, as opposed to having to commute to try and train collectively.

“They'll do a session collectively together in Cork and do one night a week. That session will go on, religiously every week. 

It would be the same as training in any club, but it's just that Garnish are doing it 100 miles away from their club.

“We've got guys from Kerry and we've got guys from Cork that have kind of retired from football,” Ollie explains. “And they still want to play a bit of social football and have a bit of craic.

“Now, obviously, we call it that, but we're competitive and we want to win, no different to any other club.” 

Crucially, the work put in at adult level is being mirrored beneath it.

“We’ve put a lot of work into the underage in the last four or five years,” he explains. “And there's been an increase, a bit of a baby boom, which is great. Our underage are fielding again.

“It might be boys and girls for a team, but we're having blitzes and we have an identity, and I think that's so important for the youngsters in the parish.” 

The challenge, as always for rural clubs, is time. Garnish may only have one player stepping up from minor into adult ranks in 2026, but the picture improves the further down the ladder you look.

“From about [ages] 10 and 12 now, we've good numbers. So if we can weather the storm, we should have numbers again in six or seven years.

Emigration, once one of the biggest problems for the club, has eased somewhat. Many players are now based in Cork or Dublin, but still willing to travel home to play.

And at the heart of it all, O’Sullivan believes, is identity.

“The big thing for me is that the kids have the identity of where they grow up, and I think the GAA has always been a focal point in rural Ireland. More so in kind of places like the Beara Peninsula and the western seaboard.” 

Alternatives are limited at present. Soccer exists locally, but rugby does not, Bantry is an hour away from Allihies. The GAA, by contrast, is there, rooted in the parish, and always has been.

EYE ON THE BALL

“It's important that we make a huge effort collectively, as a community, to make sure it stays there for those kids. It's not a case that they're gone, it's a case that there are a lot of kids being born into it, but there’s kind of a generation gap there,” he says. “The bottom line is you've got to keep your eye on the ball, you've got to keep doing the work.

“You've got to work with the kids, and you've got to work with the juveniles up through to adult level, and you've got to make it enjoyable.

“You want to keep everybody participating, because the development of kids is varied, and what you want to do is you want to bring as many through as possible,” he remarks. “And if you do that, you have a great chance.

“The key here is work. Everybody has to work. It has to be collective effort.”