Cahair O’Kane: How can you put words on a feeling so unique?

Share current article via FacebookShare current article via PinterestShare current article via TwitterShare current article via LinkedInlead-art-block.fullscreen-enterExpandJoe Finnegan of St Brigid’s wheels away in celebration after Sunday’s Antrim SFC final win over O’Donovan Rossa. PICTURE: SEAMUS LOUGHRAN In association with Find Insurance NI Find Insurance NI has been supporting Northern Ireland businesses for 50 years, building a strong reputation for commercial insurance expertise and trusted service across the region. Call 08000 126 367 or visit findinsuranceni.co.uk By Cahair O'KaneOctober 19, 2026 at 8:00pm BSTCan you put that into words?

IN the century-and-a-half for which that has been the first question asked to freshly bejewelled county champions, nobody has ever adequately answered it.

In the darkness of an unseasonably warm October Sunday evening, two gravestones are lit up.

One in the middle of Belfast, where the St Brigid’s players laid the blue-and-yellow checked flag over the cross and set the cup on its head as they brought it to Fionntán McGarvey.

Crossmaglen’s first stop on the way home was with Caolan ‘Stringer’ Finnegan. They pitched a tiny flag beside the number 15 jersey with which he was becoming synonymous despite his tender years.

St Brigid’s had just won their first ever.

It’s mad to think that since beating Scotstown after extra-time to win an 11th Ulster Club title in 19 years back in 2015, Crossmaglen have won one game in the provincial championship, a first round 2018 victory over Coalisland.

The club might have enough All-Irelands and Ulsters and county titles to pawn the silver and live off the winnings but their past successes bear no weight on the mantelpieces of players who were winning their first county title.

Everything is always a first for someone.

And so in that way, Cross and St Brigid’s were no different.

Huge crowds at county finals are often associated with novelty pairings, which was in no way applicable to the heavyweight encounter between Glen Rovers and St Finbarr’s in Cork.

More than 19,000 people headed down by the river to see could the Barrs draw level with the Rovers on 27 county titles.

They’re tucked second and third behind Blackrock on the roll of honour yet this was Glen Rovers’ first championship in a decade and Finbarr’s have won one since 1993.

“The dog days are over,” that now staple lyric of the post-match ballad, clawed its way up off the pitch and into the stands and out into the Cork city air, same as it did for the Monday Club in the Bot in Belfast.

What do Glen Rovers, winning their 28th, know of dog days?

Or Scotstown, picking up an 11th Monaghan title in 14 years?

The first of those 11 broke a 20-year sequence of not winning a county title for a club so used to winning Ulsters in the previous 20 years.

Their sons of fathers have sent Scotstown’s history book back to the printers, adamant there are more chapters yet to write.

Depending on what way things fall this weekend, the senior Ulster Club series this year will contain somewhere between one and three of last year’s nine competitors.

As is stands, Scotstown are the only ones back.

Newbridge and Erne Gaels would join them if they win on Sunday.

There is no greater story of contrast than the Derry final.

Magherafelt don’t win every underage A title going but from U14 to minor, they’re always there in the mix.

In the last 60 years, Newbridge have won three underage titles in the A grade.

The other was an U14 title almost 20 years ago.

Two years ago, Eamon Young, Oisin Doherty, Cathair McBride and Ronan Doherty were in the Newbridge team beaten in a B2 (third tier) minor final.

They lost it to Doire Trasna, who won this year’s junior championship in Derry.

And yet on Sunday, Newbridge will go to Celtic Park attempting to win their third senior championship in-a-row in a county whose champions tend to go close in the province.

Scotstown needed extra-time to get over them last year.

Having beaten newbies Truagh by 15 points, the cameras captured Darren Hughes coming off the field in Clones, his eye as black as night, the head wrapped three-deep in bandages.

He marches past David McCague, accepts the firm handshake without breaking stride, without making eye contact or saying a word, and off down the tunnel.

Of course it would have meant something different to the Truagh players if they’d found a way of overcoming the odds.

More? Only in the sense of each one having its own merits.

Because there are Crossmaglen players with a drawer full of them who craved this one.

For themselves. For the feeling of re-asserting their dominance. For Stringer.

Maybe the parents are there waiting, their colours on, arms outstretched. Maybe there’s a sadness that they never cared for it all. And maybe they once did but the fireside chairs are empty now.

Toddlers thrown into the air, the newly-discovered why for putting yourself through this.

The babies that didn’t make it, the reflection of what their life might have been caught in the droplet of a private tear that nobody catches.

But the gift of this thing is that if you get it right, you might not lose forever either.

There’s 850 of them and we’re not an inch closer to answering that 150-year-old question.