After success in the All-Ireland Junior Hurling Championship and a successful return to the intermediate ranks, everyone connected with Kilbrittain is spending the winter celebrating. Manager Joe Ryan looks back on the last year with Dylan O’Connell.

It has been a historic year for Kilbrittain, following on from county and Munster honours at the tail end of the 2025 season. Their big day out in Croke Park was in January and it saw Easkey of Sligo beaten by the bare minimum, a moment that was celebrated by many across West Cork.

Failure to qualify for the knockout stages of the Cork Intermediate A Hurling Championship was met with feelings of disappointment by many, but the good far outweighs the bad when it comes to what Kilbrittain has achieved over the last 12 months.

“I suppose that in the last few weeks since we’ve been knocked out of the Intermediate Championship I’ve had time to go over clippings and interviews and the various podcasts I was on,” says Joe.

“It’s been lovely. It’s been great. You know, to go through it with the family and it’s incredible. There are things that you have forgotten or things you wouldn’t have necessarily thought of at the time.

“My eldest is seven and it’s really fresh in her memory. She really bought into it and she loved everything about it.”

The victory last January resonated with thousands across West Cork, and was seen as a victory for the small ball in a land traditionally associated with the big one. Ryan is more than aware of this and what their success has meant to people in villages running from Kilbrittain to Castletownbere.

“The number of clubs that play football in West Cork far outnumber the amount of clubs that play hurling,” he says.

“There’s a big effort being made to promote it a bit more and it is difficult. Traditionally you would have a pocket of clubs with Kilbrittain, Timoleague, Barryroe, Ballinascarty, Newcestown, and Bandon. They have dual status and hurling might not be the priority in some of them.

“It’s hard for Carbery representatives to play and survive at a higher level and when it does happen it is quite unique. It’s something that should be highlighted and it is great.”

Kilbrittain’s story is still their own, and the next chapter involved playing in the Cork Intermediate A Hurling Championship.

The club entered the fourth tier of the pyramid and started life with a victory over Russell Rovers and a draw with local rivals Bandon. A defeat to Aghada stopped them from progressing to the quarter finals in their final outing, a result that brought an end to Kilbrittain’s extraordinary run.

Ryan was disappointed on the day, but he is happy with overall with how the step up with Intermediate A went.

“I think we’re just disappointed that’s it’s just finished really,” he says.

“I don’t think we can have any complaints about the Aghada game really. They beat us fair and square. They are a great team. Two of the teams that were in our group were in the county final. I don’t think we can make much solace from that but it shows the competition we are in.

“I think the disappointment comes from our performance against Russell Rovers in the first round, which was brilliant. That first half of hurling was probably as good as we played in the last two years. So then you do that, and you get a bit of hope for the year, and you go, jeepers, what might happen?

“I suppose we went on to the Bandon game then, which was a real local derby, and it was a real tense, tight affair, and it was a draw. You’re going into the Aghada game with a bit of hope and look it wasn’t to be.

“I think, look, overall, I’m very pleased with the year that we had. Albeit at different stages, you’re kind of hoping for more.”

The most important thing for Kilbrittain is safety and the club comfortably held their own at the Intermediate A grade, instead of going straight back down to the junior ranks after the highs of last January in Croke Park.

“There’s a very good team there with a lot of potential,” explains Ryan.

“The age profile is really good; as far as I know the older statesmen are staying on, which is good. Ultimately, we can manage and facilitate an environment but the players need to drive it. I would hope that the last 12 months has given them confidence about what they can achieve when they commit to it and put the training in.

“They will be confident they can play to a certain way and play to a certain level.”

One issue Kilbrittain are dealing with as they navigate their return to Intermediate status is managing the next generation. That’s a problem every club has, as it involves hundreds of hours on the pitch with local schoolchildren getting to grips with how hurling works.

Ryan places his team’s success in the context of nurturing those players, after they saw local heroes deliver on the biggest stage of all.

“I think of the primary school that’s there and their memories of us winning,” adds Ryan.

“For some people, their first memory of a local game was the Munster or All Ireland series or the county final. They went to Croke Park to see their club play. Those sort of memories [create that] buy in I suppose going forward, whether it be GAA or camogie or at underage.

“All the players have gone through Kilbrittain National School or Gurraneasig National School, which are the two local schools. You are looking at young boys and girls that are seeing them and thinking ‘they were in our school’ and it can only be a good thing.”

Kilbrittain are always looking to the future, while making sure that everyone who has helped them along the way has a place in their overarching club history.

One person that will never be forgotten is Oisín Gillain, who sadly passed away in March 2025. The teenage sensation left a void in the village that will never be truly healed, but the Kilbrittain community is keeping his memory alive with their latest project.

“He was only 18, and he would have been on the team really,” says Ryan.

“We lost him in March 2025, and his birthday was actually on the night of the county final. Anything to do with the team and the success, Oisín is behind it. We retired his jersey last year for it.

“There’s a lot of fundraising going on at the minute for a community centre and a community gym, and it’s going to be called Oisín’s Gym. We have various fundraisers for him going on as well.”

This is what it all goes back to. The locals of Kilbrittain and the sheer love of place. Their GAA club’s success in Croke Park elevated and touched everyone. The club are building now for the next generation, and making sure no one is forgotten.

Bandon are thriving in the Munster Senior League Second Division after going down last season, and everyone involved at the club has their sights firmly set on promotion. The team could not have asked for a better start – they returned to action in August and won their first four games by an aggregate score of 17-4. They also progressed in the Keane Cup despite losing narrowly to Ringmahon Rangers, with that result overturned over issues involving player registration. Bandon moved on with a team led by Peter Mullins, an experienced figure in Cork soccer after previous stints with Avondale United and Riverstown. October will be one of their busiest months and, as the season intensifies, the coach tells Dylan O’Connell all about their promotion and rebuilding campaign. 

“It’s been really good, really good,” says Mullins.

“It’s a new management team and a lot of restructure behind the scenes with youth teams and junior teams.

“It’s a brand new senior team put together. We had a good pre-season, had good numbers at training and it just starts from there. It breeds good habits and we had a good unbeaten pre-season. We played some good opposition. We played Ballinhassig from the First Division, who are a really good side. We played good opposition which tested us and we picked up good habits for the start of the season.”

It wasn’t just that the club are picking up the pieces after relegation and hoping to go again, they are trying to rebuild after experiencing the drop twice in three years.

They were in the Premier Division as recently as the 2023-24 season and playing against top sides like Midleton, College Corinthians, and Ringmahon Rangers. They even reached the Beamish Stout Senior Cup semi-final that year, and lost to an all-conquering Rockmount side looking for their seventh major trophy in three years.

Bandon went down with just one win recorded and four draws, as the basement side in a ten team league.

There was no immediate reprieve in the First Division during the 2024-25 season, instead they were dumped out of the Keane Cup by Carigtwohill and their league campaign started with a four match winless run. Bandon rallied and managed to finish fourth in the First Division, in addition to reaching the Round of 16 of the Munster Senior Cup and losing to Waterford at the RSC.

Instead of being a platform to build from, it was a false dawn as the 2025-26 campaign brought automatic relegation after a basement finish. Bandon could only muster two wins that year, not that it meant anything in the  end.

Mullins was brought in to pick things up and restore Bandon as a force to be reckoned with in local soccer.

“I was trying to pick heads up and get the morale going again and get a winning mentality back again as well,” he explained.

“Just from the first session we said we wouldn’t work on tactics so much but there’s no excuse for hard work. Put in the hard work and it will pay dividends. We know we’ve got ability so that will come out in the performances.”

Mullins has a lot to pull from as he prepares for one of the busiest stretches of the season, with games lined up in the FAI Intermediate Cup and a number of local cup competitions.

The coach has years of experience in Cork, from a previous stint at Bandon to his first steps at Riverstown’s academy. Avondale United is where he is best known in the city after helping the club’s junior team win the Donal Linehan Cup, one of the most sought-after trophies at that level.

Mullins is now solely focused on the club in his own neck of the woods, Bandon, and part of his vision for the club is putting a sense of localism into everything they do. The goal here to build something truly local, that involves the very best footballers from the town, and slowly it is coming true.

“I have been coaching for years,” Mullins explained.

“My previous club would have been Avondale, so I was with Avondale seniors and Avondale in the Junior Premier Division for the last three or four years. I came back with a view to taking this job. I’m from Bandon but a lot of people were saying to me, are you going to get new players? Are you going to get players from the city? Are you going to get players from the club? There are players in the club every single one of those lads is from Bandon.

“I think Ger Rice in the ten lives four or five miles out in Innishannon and that’s it. There’s no one coming from Clon and there’s no one coming from the city. In that it gives you a good work ethic because they’re fighting for each other.”

What this has created is an environment where everyone knows each other, and this has made the squad stronger.

“There’s no one being brought in to play up front because we don’t have anyone in the town that can play up front – everyone is Bandon through and through and that’s a good basis,” Mullins added.

“That comes out in the performances, they’re fighting for each other. As I said at the start, get the work ethic up, the fight was there, but maybe the energy levels weren’t or the intensity wasn’t there. The new coaching team that came in, we just pushed that for the first few weeks and then dribbled tactics and systems and things like that.”

So far everything is going according to plan. Bandon are thriving in the Munster Senior League Second Division and the club’s course has been steadied after experiencing two relegations in three seasons.

There’s still a lot of work to be done. The season will run until May and there are plenty of twists to come in a title race that also involves Riverstown and a Wilton United side stepping back up to senior football.

What Bandon have to get them through this is a clear sense of local identity, and that’s something that cannot be manufactured or brought in. Mullins has nurtured this feeling and it is leading to impressive results on the pitch.

There’s still a long way to go, especially when the multitude of local cup competitions are factored in alongside the precarious nature of a calendar that is usually dictated by the weather. Bandon won’t seem to mind. The club have found their way again and Mullins is leading them forward.