IT’S FIVE years since Cathal Gallagher switched on a laptop and prepared himself for what he describes now as the best and worst day of his life.
In an apartment in Perth, Gallagher sat down to watch a stream of TG4’s coverage of Glenswilly taking on St Michael’s in the Donegal senior football championship final.
He was living at the time with Shaun Burke, who was working at the time so Gallagher was on his own when the ball was thrown in.
Picture caption: Cathal Gallagher with his brother and Glenswilly team-mate Neil after Glenswilly won the Donegal SFC in 2013. Picture by Geraldine Diver
A little over an hour later, Gary McFadden, the Glenswilly captain, was raising Dr Maguire above his head.
Glenswilly had just experienced its greatest hour. Gallagher – whose brother Neil was and is one of the stars – didn’t know where to turn.
“It was the best and worst day of my life all in one,” he says now, as Glenswilly head into their fifth senior final.
“The way the game went, I was getting more nervous at the end.
“It was three o’clock in the morning in Australia and I was getting all these calls and texts from home.
“I’d love to have been in Ballybofey. My mother rang me and she was in tears. I was in tears myself. It was a moment we never thought we’d see in the Glen.”
Gallagher watched from the terraces in 2007 when Glenswilly were beaten by St Eunan’s in the decider, but by 2013 he was back playing as Glenswilly overcame Killybegs and reached the Ulster final.
He watched the 2012 All-Ireland final from Down Under, too, and might even have missed Glenswilly’s second capture of the Donegal title in 2013 only for having his ear bent by Gary McDaid.
He says: “I came back and was going to head away again. I met Gary one night over Christmas and he told me to stay about and put my shoulder to the wheel.
“I decided to stay and we had a great run in 2013.
“We gave Ulster a right good shot that day. Experience saw Ballinderry over the line.”
Few, including themselves, would have given Glenswilly a chance of making it this far just weeks ago. They seemed doomed in League and Championship, but Michael Murphy and Neil Gallagher returning to the fold injected a real lease of new life into the Glenmen.
[adrotate group=”76″]“We could have been relegated from the League and had a relegation play-off in the Championship too,” Cathal Gallagher says now ahead of Sunday’s joust with Kilcar.
“There was no way we could have thought about being here. It was some boost to get Neil and Michael back.
“You’d notice that everything lifts with the two boys. The boys come back and every man is out to impress them and show we haven’t slackened off. The rest of us need to get the push in as well.”
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