Donegal v Galway

[Blowitupref]

Galway name unchanged team from the win over Dublin.

Connor Gleeson
Johnny McGrath
Seán Fitzgerald
Jack Glynn
Dylan McHugh
Liam Silke
Séan Mulkerrin
Paul Conroy
Sean Kelly
Matthew Tierney
John Maher
Cillian McDaid
Robert Finnerty
Damien Comer
Shane Walsh

Subs: Conor Flaherty, John Daly, Eoghan Kelly, Daniel Ó Flaherty, Kieran Molloy, Cathal Sweeney, Cein Darcy, Johnny Heaney, Liam Ó Conghaile, Tomo Culhane, Niall Daly

Only player that featured the last day and misses out is Cian Hernon and he's replaced on the bench by the more experienced player Cathal Sweeney.

[SouthOfThe Bann]

Tommy Martin article headline in the Irish examiner about Donegal nearly being more of a Connacht county than a Ulster one.

Saying there's too much similarity between Galway and Donegal for any beef.

Do Donegal people agree with this?

[GalwayBayBoy]

Tommy Martin article headline in the Irish examiner about Donegal nearly being more of a Connacht county than a Ulster one.

Saying there's too much similarity between Galway and Donegal for any beef.

Do Donegal people agree with this?

I'd say half of Donegal went to college in Galway anyway.

[Manning18]

Tommy Martin article headline in the Irish examiner about Donegal nearly being more of a Connacht county than a Ulster one.

Saying there's too much similarity between Galway and Donegal for any beef.

Do Donegal people agree with this?

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport-columnists/arid-41433898.html

I really enjoyed that article and could relate to it. Is Tommy Martin from Donegal?

I've always had the two counties as somewhat similar, especially in relation to socialising and alcohol. Galway, the biggest college pissup town in the country with festivals taking over in the summertime. Historically filled with underage stars in both codes who let their talent slip away as the local night scene slowly got the better of them. Surfer boys and craic merchants as Joe Brolly called them in 2014

Donegal, the wild land of the endless lock-in. Famously the most session heavy GAA team of all (pre Jim of course), with stories of pints before league games or week long parties in Dublin between a quarter final and its replay

All somewhat different now obviously but as far as counties go, I think the population of both are similar in nature. Both shaped by wind and rain of course also

[SouthOfThe Bann]

Tommy Martin article headline in the Irish examiner about Donegal nearly being more of a Connacht county than a Ulster one.

Saying there's too much similarity between Galway and Donegal for any beef.

Do Donegal people agree with this?

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport-columnists/arid-41433898.html

I really enjoyed that article and could relate to it. Is Tommy Martin from Donegal?

I've always had the two counties as somewhat similar, especially in relation to socialising and alcohol. Galway, the biggest college pissup town in the country with festivals taking over in the summertime. Historically filled with underage stars in both codes who let their talent slip away as the local night scene slowly got the better of them. Surfer boys and craic merchants as Joe Brolly called them in 2014

Donegal, the wild land of the endless lock-in. Famously the most session heavy GAA team of all (pre Jim of course), with stories of pints before league games or week long parties in Dublin between a quarter final and its replay

All somewhat different now obviously but as far as counties go, I think the population of both are similar in nature. Both shaped by wind and rain of course also

Could you copy and paste her in haha

[SouthOfThe Bann]

Tommy Martin article headline in the Irish examiner about Donegal nearly being more of a Connacht county than a Ulster one.

Saying there's too much similarity between Galway and Donegal for any beef.

Do Donegal people agree with this?

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport-columnists/arid-41433898.html

I really enjoyed that article and could relate to it. Is Tommy Martin from Donegal?

I've always had the two counties as somewhat similar, especially in relation to socialising and alcohol. Galway, the biggest college pissup town in the country with festivals taking over in the summertime. Historically filled with underage stars in both codes who let their talent slip away as the local night scene slowly got the better of them. Surfer boys and craic merchants as Joe Brolly called them in 2014

Donegal, the wild land of the endless lock-in. Famously the most session heavy GAA team of all (pre Jim of course), with stories of pints before league games or week long parties in Dublin between a quarter final and its replay

All somewhat different now obviously but as far as counties go, I think the population of both are similar in nature. Both shaped by wind and rain of course also

Could you copy and paste her in haha

In fairness Galway and Donegal are probably the two most universally liked counties in Ireland.

Not sure if any other county comes close? Possibly Clare.

[blanketattack]

Can use removepaywall.com to view Irishexaminer articles.

[Rossfan]

Galway has about twice the population of Donegal.

[J70]

Tommy Martin article headline in the Irish examiner about Donegal nearly being more of a Connacht county than a Ulster one.

Saying there's too much similarity between Galway and Donegal for any beef.

Do Donegal people agree with this?

I think there's cultural similarities for sure, and yes, loads of Donegal ones have historically headed down to UCG (although you could also say that about Sligo IT etc), gone to Galway for major medical stuff and so on.

I'd say the lack of GAA animosity is simply down to the lack of familiarity. We've played Galway in championship in 1974, 1983 (a heartbreaker!), 2003 (x 2), 2009, 2015 and 2017. That's it, six ties, seven matches in our history (three wins each and a draw).

We've met Tyrone in three different championship ties in the last year alone!

[Manning18]

Tommy Martin article headline in the Irish examiner about Donegal nearly being more of a Connacht county than a Ulster one.

Saying there's too much similarity between Galway and Donegal for any beef.

Do Donegal people agree with this?

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport-columnists/arid-41433898.html

I really enjoyed that article and could relate to it. Is Tommy Martin from Donegal?

I've always had the two counties as somewhat similar, especially in relation to socialising and alcohol. Galway, the biggest college pissup town in the country with festivals taking over in the summertime. Historically filled with underage stars in both codes who let their talent slip away as the local night scene slowly got the better of them. Surfer boys and craic merchants as Joe Brolly called them in 2014

Donegal, the wild land of the endless lock-in. Famously the most session heavy GAA team of all (pre Jim of course), with stories of pints before league games or week long parties in Dublin between a quarter final and its replay

All somewhat different now obviously but as far as counties go, I think the population of both are similar in nature. Both shaped by wind and rain of course also

Could you copy and paste her in haha

Yep no probs!! Fully agree on Clare btw, some fantastic towns and scenery and occasions in Clare

Tommy Martin: Free spirits Galway and Donegal have too much in com

"I might send him a cheeky text tonight," said Jim McGuinness, setting the friendliest of tones ahead of an All-Ireland football semi-final. "If we couldn't win it, I'd be delighted for Padraic to win it."

The Donegal boss was talking about Galway manager Pádraic Joyce, his friend and former team-mate from college days with Tralee IT.

Of course, McGuinness will have spent the intervening fortnight planning the total destruction of Joyce and everything he stands for. And Joyce likewise. Nothing personal, just business.

But there's something fitting ahead of this one about the two managers being longstanding chums. There's no beef between Donegal and Galway.

It's not like the bitter trench warfare of Ulster Championship rivalries or the perpetual fluctuations of Connacht bragging rights. They tend to hang out in different circles, bumping into each other in the league and in the odd championship encounter but don't spend enough time together to develop a decent mutual loathing.


More than that though, Donegal and Galway have too much in common for this not to be a good natured sort of a do. They are West Coast cousins, different shades of the same genetic palate. Both sweep geographically right to left from rolling arable east to ravishing western seaboard.

The native tongue runs free across the rugged Gaeltacht regions of both counties, inspiring an independence of spirit. Someone from Gaoth Dobhair can have more in common with someone from An Cheathrú Rua than they have with someone from Letterkenny.

Donegal people speak with Ulster accents but there's always been as much Connacht in them. Many in Donegal relate more to the doomed
romanticism of the smaller province than the square-shouldered dourness of their northern neighbours.

They are the outsiders and the contrarians. They call themselves the Cinderella County — the beautiful girl in rags who would be queen.


For some reason, a lot of Donegal kids used to be sent to boarding school at St Jarlath's in Tuam, the great football academy.

Generations of windswept Donegal types have also been attracted to Galway for their third-level studies, eschewing the pragmatic mainstream of Dublin, seeing in the artsy dissolution of the City of the Tribes a more authentic way to find themselves than in the distant metropolis.

Alighting from Feda O'Donnell's bus in Eyre Square, the city scoops them up into its bosom like some great hippy aunt, feeding them culture and craic and plenty of drink. No visit to Galway is complete for a Donegal person without observing an old school friend, now with dreadlocks and Palestinian keffeyeh, bashing away at a bodhran in some pub, a loyal mongrel snoozing on a rope at his feet.

It is also the degree to which both counties indulge their shared romantic sides that defines their Gaelic football fortunes, both like footballing versions of the Galway undergraduate struggling to figure when its time to study and when its time to party.

For Galway, the death of John O'Mahony last weekend has provided another chance to reflect on when they were kings back in 1998 and 2001.

O'Mahony played his part in nudging the game into modernity, harnessing the talents of Joyce, Michael Donnellan, Ja Fallon and others with a highly professional set-up. But those teams are remembered as supreme stylists, great prelapsarian champions of a game fallen into disrepute.


Ever since, Galway have wrestled with how to take the native swagger of their footballers into the modern age, at first dabbling half-heartedly with defensive systems then abandoning them when the howls of local protest became too loud, then under Kevin Walsh's stewardship installing the steel-strutted structures required to compete at the highest level.

The thinking was that Joyce, cultured but supremely competitive, might get the balance just right. The win over Dublin suggests it may finally be their time after five seasons of hard lessons, with the virtuoso Shane Walsh the heir to that long poetic lineage.

McGuinness has been there and done that, of course. In fact, the Donegal manager is a one-man parable when it comes to taming the romantic spirit, the long-haired wildman of his youth finding meaning in the face of personal tragedy through self-improvement, focus, discipline, purpose.

McGuinness turned his own life story into a map for the footballing fortunes of his home county, giving the gifted wastrels of repute a short back and sides and showing them what they could achieve if they committed their lives to some greater cause. They would not have won their
All-Ireland in 2012 if they had not been allowed to flex the artistry that always resides within the county's best footballers, and yet McGuinness's success was to some degree in forcing his team to turn away from their individualistic, hard-partying Donegal selves.

When McGuinness was filmed helping out Joyce at a Galway training session in 2020 it raised the tantalising prospect of Galway's native talent being sharpened by the same hard stone, but it was his own county, three years later, to which he would eventually return.

The medicine has gone down just as quick second time around, with the bedraggled squad of 2023 suffused with belief and energy.

Like his first Donegal team, this one follows the plan to the letter and it may be that the plan for this year was to get promoted to Division 1, win Ulster and reach an All-Ireland semi-final. That might make this Sunday a step too far.

Galway are tougher and more weather-beaten but ironically it is the old-school flair and swagger of their forwards that a Donegal side lacking in man markers might find too much.

If that's how it turns out, it wouldn't be the worst one for Donegal folk to take.

The other crowd also know all about sideways Atlantic rain, wild sessions in low-lit pubs, signposts in impenetrable Gaeilge pointing the wrong way, turf-cutting, messing, bored sheep looking back at you through barbed wire fences, the death notices on Raidió na Gaeltachta, poets and artists and general chancers and the joys of a
stylish corner forward dropping the shoulder.

If we couldn't win it, they might say, you'd be delighted if they did.

[tiempo]

Jim ... it's time to bite the bar

Murph

[Rossfan]

This is an even bigger game after today's result!

[armaghniac]

This is an even bigger game after today's result!

these teams do not fear Armagh, and likewise, and if it is close tomorrow then it will be a disappointment for the losing team.

[J70]

This is an even bigger game after today's result!

these teams do not fear Armagh, and likewise, and if it is close tomorrow then it will be a disappointment for the losing team.

Involving the three teams, there's been four games so far this season.


Three draws, Donegal won the other (Div 2 final) by a single last minute point.

[armaghniac]

This is an even bigger game after today's result!

these teams do not fear Armagh, and likewise, and if it is close tomorrow then it will be a disappointment for the losing team.

Involving the three teams, there's been four games so far this season.


Three draws, Donegal won the other (Div 2 final) by a single last minute point.

The semi tomorrow is pretty much evens and the final likewise, which is unusual.