Around the Dublin camp this week, they’re walking in quicksand. When the news filtered home last weekend that selector Shane O’Hanlon had died suddenly in Spain, it rooted everyone to the spot. They’ve all stood for a minute’s silence countless times. None felt like the one they will stand for this evening.
Shane O’Hanlon was so much more than a name on a list of the Dublin backroom team. He was a selector and a logistics man, catch-all job titles that can mean whatever the beholder sees fit. He did seven seasons alongside Jim Gavin and then, when Dessie Farrell came in, he was the only one of the executive branch to stay on. Before that, he did four seasons alongside Gavin with the under-21s. Ask any of the modern Dublin greats and they’ll fall over themselves to explain the debt they owe him.
“You could ring every player for the last 10 years and I still don’t think you’d be able to get a full picture of the role that Shane had,” says Michael Darragh Macauley. “He was the main man in many ways,” says Dean Rock. “There’s a big cloud over Dublin football this week,” says Kevin McManamon. “He really had a unique impact on the players.”
McManamon is still involved in the Dublin set-up as their sports psychologist. The squad gathered for training on Tuesday and Thursday and had to will themselves into their work. To the outside world, O’Hanlon was a face in the chorus line if he was anything at all. But within the Dublin camp, his death feels like a bridge has just collapsed in front of them.
Still, the schedule has no reverse gear. Dublin sit bottom of Division One after two games, the only top-flight team not to have picked up a point so far. Ordinarily, the Rossies coming to Croke Park would be a get-right fixture – Dublin haven’t lost to Roscommon in league or championship since 2002. But this has been no ordinary week and however well they prepare, they can’t be sure what sort of game they have in them. They won’t know until they know.
“We’ll just have to see what happens,” McManamon says. “The reality of it is that we’ve got two or three of the biggest National League games that Dublin have played in years coming down the line. We have Roscommon on Saturday, Kerry the week after and then up to Derry the week after that. But look, that’s the reality of it. This is an incredibly resilient group and we’ll do best practice and we’ll support each other as best we can.
“We’ll have to figure out how to move forward – but certainly not move on, if that makes sense. It feels odd to even say that. It’s not going to be easy. How can you talk tactics or talk game prep when you’re feeling like this?”
For almost a decade and a half, Shane O’Hanlon was the stock in the stew for Dublin. Not the star ingredient, not the spice that gave it a kick. Just always there, always crucial, completely infused through the thing.
“Every county team probably has someone like a Shane,” Macauley says. “But, mother of God, the amount of fires that that man put out for us on a daily basis would shock you. He really was the Everything Man on the team. That came down to a lot of logistics, hotels, buses, everything around the media, food, all sorts of stuff. He always had two things in his hand – his phone and a smoke.
“He was every manager’s go-to. I know when Dessie came on he was like, ‘Jesus Christ, we need to keep Shane.’ There is so much knowledge that has been lost with him gone now. Just all the small things he put together. You would have people in the set-up who have one big job, Shane had an endless list of small jobs that he did that added up to so much more.”
Everyone understood the impact of what he was doing and it was never lost on lads. He was always really appreciated by everyone in the group
And not just with the Dublin football team, either. If the Dublin hurlers needed contacts for a hotel down the country or a venue for a training camp, they rang Shane O’Hanlon. If the local council was doing an event and was crossing their fingers that they might get a notable Dub or two at it, they rang Shane O’Hanlon.
“There would have been a lot of stuff he did for people that nobody would know a thing about,” McManamon says. “Little things, like he’d get you a car park pass for the Croke Park Hotel if you knew somebody was coming to the game and they’d broken their leg.
“Or if someone’s parent was ill, you’d find out later that Shane had organised a doctor and a Garda escort to get them into Croke Park for an All-Ireland final. Things that someone would be worried about, Shane would take that worry away for them. It was all just making sure he could clear the decks for the players and make it easy for them so they could focus on the game.”
In his logistics role, O’Hanlon scouted everything for the Dubs. They would land into training on a Tuesday night and he would be there, having spent the day driving to and from Castlebar or Newry or wherever they were playing that weekend. He’d have a plan made for where they were going to park, where they would set up the food, how long every part of their matchday would take. As McManamon puts it, he took care of all the “one-per-cent stuff”.
“For years, he would have driven up to all the venues for away games ahead of time,” Rock says. “He’d be driving to places like Derry or Kerry and he’d go at the same speed as the bus would be driving so that everything would be timed to perfection. His attention to detail was everything.
“He’d be going into the dressing rooms and taking pictures of them so that when lads got off the bus they’d know straight away where they’d have to go to, the space they’d have in the dressing room, could they get a little bit done in the dressing room or would they have to go out onto the pitch to do an extra five minutes of warm-up.
“Anything he was asked to do by Jim or Dessie, he always just jumped at the opportunity to help. When there’d be a lot of tension in the run up to big games, he’d always be the one person that lads would gravitate towards. You could have a conversation with him around anything, just to come away feeling a bit better or secure. He had a unique presence that way, a unique sort of ability to make lads feel good about themselves.”
To be clear, Shane O’Hanlon wasn’t a vibes man. His breadth of knowledge about Dublin football was unparalleled. He was a one-man scouting network, he was a fairly ruthless selector when it came to team-picking time. But he had a gift for cutting through all the po-facedness too.
“He was just one of those good people in a dressing room,” Macauley says. “So often, it’s such a serious environment. You’re trying to go after what you’re trying to go after. And not that Shane was a walking comedian or anything – he was always a rock of sense and a very, very passionate Dublin man. He wasn’t the class clown. But at the same time, he was well able to understand that there was another side to life at the same time.
“He’d always have a pop off you in some kind of way. He’d always take the piss out of me if I was on my skateboard or upside-down doing handstands or doing some kind of nonsense. He knew I didn’t take it all too seriously and he was there for that as well.”
This was his 12th season with the senior team. Of the 11 that had gone before, eight ended with Sam Maguire sitting on the table in the middle of the dressing room. As that golden hour passed and they bathed in their achievement, O’Hanlon would invariably be the one moving onto what came next.
“There would always be a group photo at the end of an All-Ireland,” Rock says. “You’d be in the green room in Croke Park beside the dressing room. And everybody would be taking pictures and it would be Shane who would be organising the big group photo. And there were more times when he would stand there and be the one taking the photo and we’d all be going, ‘No! Hang on – you have to be in it!’
“And someone would go off then and find somebody to take the picture because all the players would only want Shane to be in it. That’s the sort of person he was. He was just so loved. And everyone understood the impact of what he was doing and it was never lost on lads. He was always really appreciated by everyone in the group.”
“He was a selector,” says McManamon, “but as his tenure got longer, he got much more of an organiser and the heartbeat of everything that we did. He’d know every player in the county, where they’re from, their story. Just a very, very caring fella.
“I’ve never seen anybody as dependable or anyone who took as much work on. You’d get an email off him in the dead of night then you’d get another one off him first thing in the morning. He would do anything to help you along, he would take great joy in seeing the players do well.”
Ten days ago, Macauley’s phone rang and Shane O’Hanlon’s number flashed up. The former Footballer of the Year works with kids in the north inner-city and it’s always a loaves and fishes job. But even though this is his fourth season out of the Dublin panel, O’Hanlon made sure the elastic never snapped.
“He got onto me because he was saying there was a small number of Dublin jerseys that were no use to the county board anymore.” Macauley says. “He was wondering if I could repurpose them or find a worthy home for them. That was my last conversation with him. That was who he was.”
For the current Dublin panel, there’s no option but to keep trucking. Three games in 14 days will decide how their league looks. The year will bring what it will bring, but it will feel different however it pans out.
“It’s heartbreaking,” McManamon says. “The group are in shock. The players are in shock. Ex-players who would have played under Jim and Dessie are in shock.
“We’ll talk about winning matches later on. But if we get out and do what we aim to do, if we play to our standards and our values this weekend, then we have Kerry and Derry coming down the tracks. We’ll just do our best and see what happens.”
