| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sport | Gaelic football | ||
| Position | Wing-back | ||
| Born | (1942-12-01)1 December 1942 (age 82) Bundoran,County Donegal, Ireland | ||
| Occupation | Hotelier[1][2] | ||
| Club(s) | |||
| Years | Club | ||
196?–197? 197?–19?? | St Joseph's Réalt na Mara | ||
| Club titles | |||
| Donegal titles | 8 | ||
| Inter-county(ies) | |||
| Years | County | ||
19??–197? | Donegal | ||
| Inter-county titles | |||
| Ulster titles | 2 | ||
| All Stars | 1 | ||
| Personal information | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | (1942-12-01)1 December 1942 (age 82) Bundoran,County Donegal, Ireland | ||||||||
| Inter-county management | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Inter-county titles | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Brian McEniff (born 1 December 1942) is a formerGaelic football player, manager and administrator.
McEniff played as awing-back for theSt Joseph's combination of clubs fromBundoran andBallyshannon. He won sevenDonegal Senior Football Championship titles with that combination of clubs and another one withRéalt na Mara, when St Joseph's divided. He won twoUlster Senior Football Championship titles with theDonegal county team as player-manager in 1972 and 1974 and was awarded anAll Star after the first of these. He returned to manage the county to a third Ulster SFC title in 1983, then left again. He returned once more in 1989, leading the county to its fourth and fifth Ulster SFC titles in 1990 and 1992, as well as theAll-Ireland Senior Football Championship in the last of these. After becoming chairman of the county board, McEniff was unable to find a manager so did the job himself for a final time, reaching the2003 All-Ireland SFC semi-final in his last term as senior manager of the county team.
McEniff managed his county during four successive decades, earning a reputation as thedean of Donegal football.[3] In July 1992,Hogan Stand described McEniff as "one of the most successful footballgurus in modern-day GAA history" and he has been likened to a footballingGodfather-type figure.[4][5] Until2011, he was directly involved in each of his county's Ulster SFC and All-Ireland SFC title wins. That year,Jim McGuinness (whom McEniff had recommended for the under-21 managerial role the previous year) won the first of the post-McEniff Ulster SFC titles.Declan Bonner, who won his first Ulster SFC title as manager in2018, also regards McEniff as a mentor. Both McGuinness and Bonner played under McEniff when McEniff was Donegal manager.
McEniff managed theUlster provincial football team for many decades. He coachedIreland to victory overAustralia in the2001 International Rules Series, held at theMelbourne Cricket Ground andFootball Park inAdelaide in October that year.
McEniff was born on 1 December 1942.[6] He was born inBundoran,County Donegal.[citation needed]
His parents wereMr. John McEniff fromNewbliss,[clarification needed]County Monaghan, andElizabeth[clarification needed] Begley fromCarrickmore,County Tyrone.[7] They were married in Bundoran in 1935.[citation needed] McEniff has three brothers: P. J. McEniff (retired dentist),Sean McEniff (Donegal County Councillor) and Liam McEniff (doctor), and one sister, Mary McGlynn (retired hotel accountant).[citation needed]
He spent much of his childhood in Carrickmore, where his mother's family had afarmhouse.[7]
He attended aboarding school inCounty Monaghan.[2]
From the age of 17, McEniff spent three years studying hotel management at Cathal Burgha Street College in Dublin.[8]
McEniff left Ireland for Canada in 1962 to gain hotel work experience.[8] It was in 1966 that he came back to Ireland.[8]
McEniff supported Tyrone againstLouth in the1957 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final, his first visit toCroke Park.[7]
After returning from Canada in the mid-1960s, McEniff took up an interest in playing the sport.[9]
His position was in defence as awing-back.[1][9]
McEniff won numerous titles with the famousSt Joseph's combination of Bundoran and Ballyshannon, both in Donegal and Ulster. He wonDonegal Senior Football Championship titles with St Joseph's in 1965, 1968, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1976.[9] He won his last Donegal SFC title withRéalt na Mara in 1979,[9] which included the late Brendan McHugh and Seamus Reilly, both county representatives for Sligo, Mayo and Donegal.[citation needed] Hecaptained St Joseph's to the 1968Ulster Senior Club Football Championship final.[2]
He continued working to promote his club long into retirement.[10] He managed them as recently as 2013.[2][5]
McEniff was player-manager of the firstDonegal team to win anUlster Senior Football Championship title in 1972.[10][11][12] He received anAll Star award in 1972.[11][10]
He was also player–manager of the 1974 Ulster SFC winning team.[11][12] He was wing-back in the final as Donegal defeatedDown.[9]
In 1975, the Donegal County Board ousted McEniff as manager.[11][13]
In 1975, he assisted as a mentor theSligo county team that won that county's secondConnacht Senior Football Championship title.[1][11] Upon being made aware that he would be taking charge of Sligo's training sessions,Barnes Murphy, the team captain, talked to McEniff.[14] Murphy brought McEniff toCroke Park for the1975 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final againstKerry ("although some of our friends in Sligo weren't too happy about that", Murphy toldThe Irish Times in 2007).[14] McEniff, according to Murphy, could not provide advice to the team at half-time: "And I can tell you why, because they [Murphy had also brought alongJohn "Tull" Dunne] were snubbed. They wanted to make a few changes, and I was wondering where these men where, to give us some advice".[14] Sligo were routed by The Kingdom, 3–13 to 0–5.[14]
"Brian was a colossus in Donegal football because he was forward thinking. He would have united the clubs in Donegal, who at that point would have been killing one another, even at county level players wouldn't pass. There was no rapport or bonding or anything like that, but Brian worked on that. He got the players together, he really was very skilled at man management, he brought the group together".
He later returned as Donegal manager, for the first time as a non-playing member of the team.[11] He was manager in 1977.[15] He was manager again by late 1982.[15] He led Donegal to a third Ulster SFC title in 1983.[12] They narrowly lost toGalway in the1983 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final.[9]
He left again.
He began to manage the Ulster provincial football team, with which he won 12Railway Cup finals.[11][10] He managed Ulster for 23 years, until 2008.[16]He managed them from 1983 to 2007.[clarification needed]McEniff stood down from his position as Ulster manager in 2007, 25 years after taking the job in 1982.[clarification needed] He woon 14 titles.[17]
He helped Tyrone club Carrickmore, where his mother was from, when they were struggling against relegation in 1983 and 1986.[7]
McEniff returned as Donegal manager in 1989, succeedingTom Conaghan.[18][19] He led the county to another Ulster SFC title in 1990, restoring such asDeclan Bonner,Manus Boyle,Matt Gallagher,Barry McGowan andSylvester Maguire, players that Conaghan had thrown by the wayside.[19] McEniff's success inGaelic games culminated when he led his native Donegal team to glory overDublin atCroke Park in the1992 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final.[20][21] It was shortly before this match that McEniff was informed that the brother of one of his playersJoyce McMullin, had died from cancer.[21] He chose not to inform McMullin or anyone else on the team until after the match.[21] McEniff later described it as follows: "Everything had gone so smoothly but when I heard that I was knocked for six. Luckily, the lads were outside watching a bit of the minor match. I stamped up and down before deciding that Gerard would have wanted Joyce to play. When the team came back, they could see something was wrong with me, but I managed to hold it together".[21] It later emerged that there had been a miscommunication and that McMullin's brother had not died.[21] He did so a year later.[21]
McEniff resigned on 26 June 1994 and was succeeded byP. J. McGowan the following month.[22]
McEniff managedIreland for theInternational Rules Series of2000 and2001.[11] Ireland won 2001's first test, held at theMelbourne Cricket Ground on 12 October, by a scoreline of 59–53 and the second test, held atFootball Park inAdelaide on 19 October, by a scoreline of 71–52.[23] McEniff departed as Ireland manager in 2001.[24]
"Brian never let any negative vibes creep under your door. When we won, it was what we expected. The word 'defeat' was never mentioned in our group".
He soon returned for a last outing as Donegal manager. He was chairman of the Donegal County Board in late 2002, but could not find a manager, so he did it himself.[11] McGowan,Michael Oliver McIntyre and Anthony Harkin were part of his backroom team.[26] In 2003, he led Donegal to the All-Ireland SFC semi-final.[9] This was the last occasion on which they would achieve this feat until the time of the legendaryJim McGuinness. McEniff left Donegal inter-county management in 2005 after a fifth and final tenure in charge ended with a drab qualifier defeat to Cavan atBreffni Park.[27][28] During his final time as manager, McEniff called such players asNeil Gallagher,Rory Kavanagh,Karl Lacey andEamon McGee into the senior county team for the first time, in late 2003.[26]
McEniff was mentor toNell McCafferty on theCelebrity Bainisteoir television programme in 2007.
In 2010 and 2011, McEniff assistedLouth managerPeter Fitzpatrick in an advisory capacity, during which time Louth reached the2010 Leinster Senior Football Championship final.[5][11][29][30] In November that year, it was widely reported that he would become one of Fitzpatrick'sselectors for the following season, with bothHighland Radio andHogan Stand claiming he would replace the departingMartin McQuillan.[29][30][31] McEniff later denied this, though Louth County Board chairman Padraic O'Connor said McEniff would be a "great capture" and would not be paid.[32]
McEniff managed his local club in the2013 Donegal Senior Football Championship, taking over from Joe Keeney after his resignation and filling the position in his 71st year.[33]
McEniff guided bothJim McGuinness andDeclan Bonner, his most noteworthy successors as Donegal manager, into management.[7][34][35][36]
Personal connections formed a critical part of McEniff's management style, so much so that whenDeclan Bonner brought his wife toAustria on their honeymoon McEniff maintained regular contact.[37]
Involved inGaelic games administration in County Donegal, McEniff also spent time as Donegal'sGAA Central Council delegate.[16] He served on national Gaelic games committees.[16] He has also been a referee.[38] He is Managing Director of the McEniff Hotel Group, which has a presence in such locations as Bundoran,Drumcondra,Sligo,Rosses Point andWestport, County Mayo.[39] Its portfolio includes the Holyrood Hotel (originally bought by his father John in 1951) and the Great Northern Hotel & Golf links (bought fromCIÉ in 1977 by Brian and Sean McEniff and Brian's brother-in-law Michael Burke for £125,000).[citation needed] In 1969, McEniff bought the Hamilton Hotel, which was next door to the Holyrood Hotel.[citation needed]
On 7 June 1979, McEniffwas elected ontoDonegal County Council[40]in lieu of his older brotherSean McEniff.[clarification needed] Even though his father was a strongFine Gael supporter, his mother was a supporter ofFianna Fáil.[citation needed]
He was appointed to the board ofIreland West Airport in 2002.[39]
As of 2022, McEniff remained chairman of theCLG Réalt na Mara club.[41]
McEniff is married to Catherine "Cautie" O'Leary, a native of Cork whom he met in Canada and married her there.[42][8]
In later life McEniff developed a bad back. During his appearance onUp for the Match ahead of the2012 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final, McEniff was visibly stiff, awkward and in some pain. One day after undergoing surgery on his back, he attended the 2012 All Stars Awards in Dublin—at which All-Ireland SFC champions Donegal received eight places out of a possible fifteen on the All Stars Team of the Year andKarl Lacey was namedAll Stars Footballer of the Year—saying "I wouldn't miss this for the world."[43]
But when asked who was the greatest defender he played against, he unhesitatingly plumps for hotelier Brian McEniff who was a mentor to the Yeats County in 1975. 'He would not foul you but he could get his hand or foot in and could knock the ball away from you as we was also very fit'.
'All of the boys — except myself, I went to a boarding school in Monaghan — were from De La Salle'… The hotelier cites his own club…
Brian McEniff, the dean of the Donegal game who yesterday returned to take charge of his county for the fourth successive decade, could but watch as Galway raced away in the first five minutes.
Brian McEniff, soon to be installed as one of the most successful football gurus in modern-day GAA history.
We expect to see him cropping up in some county as the Championship approaches, much like Brian McEniff suddenly appeared in Peter Fitzpatrick's Louth backroom team in 2010 when they were robbed of the Leinster Championship. Old Godfathers never really retire you see, they just become advisers. The lure of the game was too much for McEniff last year, who stepped in to become manager of his club Bundoran when they were faced with a crisis, digging out an old pair of trainers that he thought he might never wear again.
McEniff was chairman of the appointments committee that brought McGuinness in as under-21 manager after he had been overlooked initially for the senior post.
The 24th of July 1983 was one of the better days for Donegal football. Their third Ulster final victory with Seamus Bonnar making history picking up his third medal. Later in the year Martin McHugh would become the county's third All-Star while Brian McEniff was manager for the third time also… There was also a good deal of experience with the aforementioned Seamus Bonnar involved in the 1972 and '74 wins…
So why was McEniff with Sligo in '75? the answer is simple. the Donegal County Board ousted him.
'Brian McEniff then asked me to come back towards the end of 1982, the beginning of 1983 with Donegal. He was also open to new ideas, he was involved in the '72 Donegal team which incidentally was the first Donegal team to win an Ulster. He was player-manager in 1974 in my first year and he was manager the year I was shafted, but had nothing to do with Brian McEniff'… 'I went to Galway, a very, very good Donegal team was broken up'. Donegal didn't truly recover until the early 1980s again according to McGettigan. 'They didn't recover until Brian went back in 1983 as manager again'.
Forty-two-year-old PJ McGowan from Ballybofey has been appointed manager… He succeeds Brian McEniff who resigned from the post on June 26 and will be in charge of the team for three years.
Brian McEniff ended his tenure as Ireland manager with a comprehensive 71–52 victory over Australia to take the International Rules series at Adelaide's Football Park this afternoon.
The man who guided Jim McGuinness into county management…
McEniff… has known McGuinness since he was a teenager… 'I took him in as a 19-year-old, and when the then-county chairman asked me to appoint an U-21 manager, I appointed Jim. So I have a great interest in Jim… There is a suggestion that I made, but Jim is not keen on, that some of the senior players… should take the first part of the year off and come the spring, they will have the appetite… Jim's not like that, but I recommended that to him'.
On the day of his 32nd birthday, on August 11, 1997, a flu-ridden Declan Bonner sat nervously in Jackson's Hotel, Ballybofey… McEniff… remains a close mentor of the Lettermacaward man.
McEniff… remains a close mentor of the Lettermacaward man… The personal touch was always important to McEniff… 'In the days long before mobiles Brian was always on the phone. He was always ringing the house to make sure this was done or that was done.
On the first Saturday in December we travelled to Fr Tierney Park to take on De La Salle, Ballyshannon. It had snowed and in very treacherous conditions we recorded our third win with 0–3 to 0–2 score line. Brian McEniff was the referee that day.
Now well beyond the age most GAA stalwarts retire he still serves as Chairman of Realt na Mara and can be found almost every Saturday outside SuperValu, Bundoran selling Bunotto.
As McEniff left his Bundoran home before the All-Ireland final of '92 his wife, Cautie, wondered how her husband would react if Donegal lost. 'Don't be stupid, woman', McEniff barked.
| Achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | All-Ireland SFC-winning manager 1992 | Succeeded by |
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by ? | Donegal Senior Football Manager 1972–1975 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Donegal Senior Football Manager 1976–1977 | Succeeded by Sean O'Donnell |
| Preceded by Sean O'Donnell | Donegal Senior Football Manager 1980–1986 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Donegal Senior Football Manager 1989–1994 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Donegal Senior Football Manager 2003–2005 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by ? | Ulster Senior Football Manager 1983–2007 | Succeeded by |