He came back for 2018 but again opted out until the 2021 season. That was his final one in the green and gold. Nobody expects a fourth coming
It comes as a jolt to realise Odhrán Mac Niallais only turned 33 in August. He is three years younger than Michael Murphy – who has been shortlisted for the Footballer of the Year award. In the early years of the last decade, the feeling was Mac Niallais – nominated for an All Star in his first season with Donegal in 2014 – would be alongside Murphy for a long, long time.
But it wasn’t to be. Mac Niallais played for three years, and then took a year out. He came back for 2018 but again opted out until the 2021 season. That was his final one in the green and gold. Nobody expects a fourth coming. Mac Niallais has been one of Gaoth Dobhair’s main men for a long time and, if they’re to beat Naomh Conaill of Glenties in Sunday’s televised Donegal county final, it will be likely because the enigmatic veteran has led from the front.
Given the fact his brother, Rónán, is Gaoth Dobhair manager, it’s no surprise Mac Niallais has enjoyed such an Indian summer to his playing career.
In a county that produces runners who rarely kick the ball, Mac Niallais stands out. He can operate both as a finisher and an elegant playmaker – with surgical kick passing a real weapon.
Mac Niallais’s first Championship season with Donegal ended in defeat to Kerry in the 2014 All-Ireland final and, in an alternate universe, Jim McGuinness would have been able to call on him at the same stage against the same opponents this year.
But Eamon McGee (inset), a Gaoth Dobhair clubmate who played alongside him with both club and county, knows the man himself has no regrets.
“Odhrán is a friend of mine and I’ve sat with him and literally begged him to go back to county football with Donegal,’’ said McGee.
“But he’s held firm and said he’s no interest in that world and, contrary to what we think, that’s a fact of life. There is more to the world than county football.’’
This is the fourth meeting of Gaoth Dobhair and Naomh Conaill since 2018, with the score at 2-1 in Glenties’ favour.
In Gaoth Dobhair, they’ll always remember 2018 as their greatest year, as that was when they won their only Ulster title. And Mac Niallais had a huge impact that season.
He scored eight points in the Donegal senior final win over Naomh Conaill, and was named as the winner of the Gradam Shéamuis Mhic Géidigh award, honouring the best player in the Donegal championship. Mac Niallais was a threat all through the Ulster campaign too.
On the eve of the 2014 All-Ireland final, Neil McGee gave an interview and he talked about what set MacNiallais apart.
“I travel with him every day, see him every day,’’ he said. “Odhrán, when he first came on, he always had the talent, he is one of the most talented players, he would remind you a bit of Diarmuid Connolly, he had that kind of talent.
“He’s married that now with hard work. We would train together down in Gaoth Dobhair in the gym and he would have been known a few years ago for skipping the odd gym session. I kept him on his toes this year, I went up to the house to take him down! But now, he’s down there before you.”
Neil’s brother, Eamon, made the prescient point back then, though, that Mac Niallais might not have a long inter-county career.
Six years ago, Mac Niallais detailed why playing for Donegal wasn’t the be all and end all for him.
“The club is where you’ve played all your life and no matter what, you always enjoy that. Playing with Donegal, there’s a lot of pressure and commitment, and I just didn’t enjoy that last year. I just wanted to get away from it,’’ he said.
“You’re always gonna have one or two good days a year, but I was having more bad days than good days. That p*ssed me off and, come the end of the year, it was just like f*** this, when it’s just not happening.”
The bloodlines always indicated he would be something special.
His granduncle was Hughie Tim Boyle, who played for Donegal between 1945 and 1955 and won seven county titles with Gaoth Dobhair. Another relation is Paddy Crerand, who won the European Cup with Manchester United alongside George Best and Bobby Charlton in 1968.
If Crerard had had his way, he – rather than Charlie Gallagher – would have been the first Scots-Irish man in green.
He did win 16 caps for Scotland but his heart was always in his mother’s homeplace of Gaoth Dobhair.
“I used to spend about six weeks of every summer in the area, sometimes Christmas as well,’’ he recalled “The Gorbals were full of Donegal people, especially from Gaoth Dobhair and the Rosses.
“Once you go anywhere, you tend to go to places where people you know are and that’s what it was like in Glasgow. Everyone looked after one another in the Gorbals – Scotland was a long way from Donegal on those days.
“I remember playing for Gaoth Dobhair against Dungloe one day in Magheragallon – we played for half-an-hour and then a football match broke out. It was in about 1955, when I was about 16 or so.”
Mac Niallias honed his own languid talent on the field in Magheragallon. Gaoth Dobhair’s hopes could depend on him on Sunday.
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