Con O’Callaghan is running out of worlds to conquer. The GAA, he’s almost completed it.
Sunday’s club football decider against Errigal Ciaran will be O’Callaghan’s 12th All-Ireland senior final, including replays. He is yet to lose one. And should Cuala make history at the weekend, O’Callaghan will join a very exclusive band of players to have won All-Ireland senior club titles in both codes.
St Finbarr’s of Cork proudly fly the flag as the only club in the history of the GAA to have won both – hurling in 1975 and 1978; football 1980, 1981 and 1987. From those teams, the Barrs produced 11 dual All-Ireland winners, including such iconic names as Jimmy Barry-Murphy, John Allen and Donal O’Grady.
Alan Kerins holds the unique honour of winning both senior club titles too, but with different clubs – the former Galway dual player won the Andy Merrigan Cup with Salthill-Knocknacarra in 2006 before adding a Tommy Moore Cup with Clarinbridge in 2011.
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That is the esteemed company O’Callaghan stands to join this Sunday. He is the only member of the current Cuala football team to have played for the Dalkey outfit in the 2017 and 2018 All-Ireland senior club hurling finals.
“Con is a special talent and whether it’s hurling or football he has that X-factor,” says John Cremin, a dual All-Ireland winner with St Finbarr’s.
“It was easier to play both hurling and football back when we were winning those All-Irelands. It is much harder now, so it is a testament to Con that he has been able to play both to this level.”
The only two significant football accolades missing from O’Callaghan’s collection are All-Ireland medals at minor level with Dublin and at senior level with Cuala. The 28-year-old can scratch off the last available one of those this Sunday.
It is no overstatement to say in O’Callaghan we are witnessing one of the truly great GAA playing careers.
He has won six Sam Maguire titles, nine Leinster crowns and three Division One National Leagues with the Dubs. He was Young Footballer of the Year in 2017 and is a three-time All Star. Having already filled the role of vice-captain, there is talk O’Callaghan will this year be handed the Dublin armband.
Cathal Murray managed Ardee St Mary’s to the Leinster club football final last November, where they faced Cuala. Louth player Donal McKenny marked O’Callaghan, while Páraic McKenny marked Niall O’Callaghan – two sets of brothers keeping each other company at Croke Park.
Con finished the game with 0-4 (0-2 from play) in a contest that went all the way to the last seconds when Luke Keating nailed an injury-time winner for Cuala.
“Because Con is so unorthodox, he gives you a lot of different problems,” explains Murray.
Ardee’s stats before that provincial final showed Cuala were certainly no one-man team – Niall O’Callaghan entered the game with a better scoring return in the competition than his more illustrious brother, while Keating also carried a weighty scoring threat.
However, Ardee also noticed Con had an average of 16 possessions in Cuala’s previous two games – so his influence was huge.
“He was getting on a lot of ball, and that was as much because of his experience as anything else – knowing when to come further out the field to get involved,” adds Murray.
“One minute he is inside as a target man, the fulcrum of the attack, and the next he has dropped out the field and is causing you problems with his strong running game.
“And that is one of the challenges in trying to plan for him, there is no obvious pattern – it wasn’t like he would stay inside for 10 minutes and then come out, he was able to adapt during the game.”
Cuala already have a history-maker in Michael Fitzsimons – who with nine Sam Maguire triumphs is the joint record medal holder along with James McCarthy and Stephen Cluxton.
But to become only the second club ever to win both senior All-Ireland titles would elevate the Dalkey outfit to a prestigious starring role in the story of the Association.
Cremin won an All-Ireland club hurling medal with the Barrs in 1978 and followed up with three football titles in 1980, 1981, 1987.
“They were brilliant days for the club and we had some great players at the time,” he says.
But the All-Ireland club competition was still in its infancy then and it didn’t have the same prominence it currently, rightfully, enjoys.
Indeed, in 1978 the semi-finals and final were played over two days – like a blitz. St Finbarr’s beat O’Donovan Rossa in an All-Ireland semi-final at Togher on Easter Sunday, March 26th. The very next day, Easter Monday, the final took place in Thurles where the Barrs beat Rathnure.
Now, more than 40 years after a club from the southside of Cork city made history, a club from the southside of Dublin has a chance to join them. And for Con O’Callaghan, it’s a chance to mine yet another medal.
“He’s played on stages that all of us probably had only hoped to get to or probably missed out on. Having him in the dressingroom, his experience is absolutely massive,” says Dublin team-mate Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne of O’Callaghan.
O’Callaghan has already completed his collection of club hurling medals. And while intercounty hurling might be the only untapped land left for O’Callaghan to explore, talk of a possible move to the small-ball code with the Dubs has waned over the years.
Right now, though, nothing else matters beyond Sunday. Beyond Cuala. As it should be. It’s a day for special players to shine, a day when ordinary clubs can achieve extraordinary feats.
“The manner in which Con plays the game, he’s brilliant to watch,” adds Cremin. “He’s a great role model.”
He also knows a thing or two about winning All-Ireland finals.
Show us your medals! The Con O’Callaghan collection
With Dublin
6 All-Ireland senior football championships (2016-20, 2023)
9 Leinster senior football championships (2016-24)
3 National Football League, Division One titles (2016, 2018, 2021)
1 National Football League, Division Two title (2023)
1 All-Ireland under-21 football championship (2017)
2 Leinster under-21 football championship (2016, 2017)
1 Leinster minor football championship (2014)
With Cuala
2 All-Ireland club senior hurling championships (2017, 2018)
2 Leinster club senior hurling championships (2016, 2017)
4 Dublin senior hurling championships (2016, 2017, 2019, 2020)
1 Dublin junior hurling championship (2015)
1 Leinster club senior football championship (2024)
1 Dublin senior football championship (2024)
2 Dublin senior B football championship (2020, 2021)
1 Dublin minor football championship (2013)
With UCD
1 Sigerson Cup (2018)
Individual awards
1 Young Footballer of the Year (2017)
3 All Stars (2017, 2019, 2020)
St Finbarr’s 11 dual club All-Ireland medal winners
Jimmy Barry Murphy (4): Hurling 1975 & 1978; Football 1980 & 1981
Christy Ryan (RIP) (4): Hurling 1978; Football 1980 (Captain), 1981 & 1987
John Allen (4): Hurling 1978; Football 1980, 1981 (Captain) & 1987
Donal O’Grady (4): Hurling 1975 & 1978; Football 1980 & 1981
Bertie O’Brien (RIP) (4): Hurling 1975 & 1978; Football 1980 & 1981
John Cremin (4): Hurling 1978; Football 1980, 1981 & 1987
Denis Burns (4): Hurling 1975 & 1978; Football 1980 & 1981
Eamonn Fitzpatrick (RIP) (3): Hurling 1975 & 1978; Football 1980
Christy Myres (3): Hurling 1975; Football 1980 & 1981
Jerry McCarthy (RIP) (3): Hurling 1975; Football 1980 & 1981
Niall Kennefick (2): Hurling 1978; Football 1981
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