Weeks after making sporting history with his county, All Ireland football champion Cian McHale was ready to add another title to his name as he graduated from University of Limerick.<\/p>\n
Mayo man Cian joined more than 3,000 students as he was conferred with a Bachelor of Arts (English and History) as part of the University\u2019s autumn graduation ceremonies.<\/p>\n
It was a proud moment for the Moy Davitts footballer, made extra-special by his incredible sporting achievements over the past 12 months. Cian collected his parchment exactly one month after winning the All-Ireland with Mayo, having secured UL\u2019s historic first-ever Sigerson Cup victory earlier in the year.<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, Cian \u2013 a UL Sports Scholar and one of Mayo\u2019s brightest rising stars \u2013 is still coming down from the high of All-Ireland glory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t put it into words. This is probably the first time I\u2019ve sat down and talked to someone properly about it. It\u2019s been crazy in Mayo. We were nine days celebrating after the final. You\u2019re going around to towns and families; you\u2019re doing events every day with the cup. It\u2019s been so special.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably only sinking in for us now, a month after. We don\u2019t know the magnitude of what we have done with this. In the days after, you\u2019re meeting older people who are in tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot more than just us who have done it in the end \u2013 it\u2019s the decades before us as well. To be on [the panel] is ridiculous. I can\u2019t even put it into words; it\u2019s what you were dreaming of growing up.\u201d Recalling the euphoric moment when the final whistle was blown in Croke Park, ending the 75-year wait for Sam\u2019s return to Mayo, Cian \u2013 who secured a brace of points in the semi-final against Louth \u2013 said: \u201cWe were actually on the pitch about five seconds before the final whistle went, and they were trying to hold us back!<\/p>\n
\u201cI ran straight to Tommy Conroy. When I got to him, we were just grabbing each other \u2013 we didn\u2019t know what to do. There were no words, you were just jumping around the place \u2013 pure relief and emotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we went down to The Hill after lifting the cup, and the whole place was packed. We were just looking up; the place had gone mad.\u201d The agony of the wait and the ecstasy of the glory is something that UL has in common with Mayo when it comes to football; and it\u2019s wonderfully poetic that in the same year he won the All-Ireland with his county, Cian played a pivotal role in securing the University\u2019s first-ever Sigerson Cup win.<\/p>\n
Cian was a standout star of the campaign, scoring five points in the final against University College Cork and ending the competition as its top scorer. He would go on to take up a well-earned spot on the 2026 Electric Ireland GAA Higher Education Championship Football Team of the Year.<\/p>\n
Being viewed as the \u201cunderdogs\u201d of the competition suited the team well, said Cian.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one was talking about us, and I think David [Power, team manager] brought that in brilliantly \u2013 we were the underdogs, and no one gave us a chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe won the league back in December, and that was first one for UL as well; but even when we won that, going into Sigerson, no one was giving us a chance. And it was similar to Mayo \u2013 we knew that with the players we had, we would be able to do something; but we didn\u2019t really know, until it got closer to the final, how close we could get.\u201d The team was \u201ccompletely confident\u201d stepping into that game against UCC, knowing that they had the freedom to play and express themselves completely \u2013 \u201cif we lost, we did it the right way\u201d.<\/p>\n
Cian reserves special praise for UL GAA Development Officer Jason Coffey and Noreen O\u2019Connell from UL\u2019s Sport Scholarship Academy for their support and encouragement throughout his time at the University.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sense of togetherness at UL is unbelievable \u2026 It became a family thing, and I think that helped us along the way. We knew we had backing from everyone, and we could just go out and enjoy ourselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While sport has played a huge role in Cian\u2019s UL journey, he has maintained the same level of dedication to his studies. With a keen interest in English and history at school, and ambitions to enter the teaching profession, Arts was a natural choice for him.<\/p>\n
His career choices were cemented, he says, after being given the opportunity to explore primary school teaching during his co-operative placement at Le Ch\u00e9ile National School in Southill, Co. Limerick.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought I would do secondary school teaching, but I wanted to try the primary side,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The school was] brilliant to me. They were lovely kids, and I still think of them often. I actually met a teacher from the school a few days after we won the All-Ireland, and he said that they still ask about me, which is really special.<\/p>\n
\u201cCo-op was a great experience for me. In the end, I decided to stick with secondary teaching, but I\u2019m delighted that I had the opportunity to try out both.\u201d Up next for Cian is a two-year masters, after which he hopes to get straight into teaching. As for football, he admits that Mayo\u2019s All-Ireland success has only made him hungrier.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone thinks you win one and that\u2019s enough, but a lot of us are thinking of more now. We have to wait and see \u2013 there\u2019s a lot of hard work that goes into it; it doesn\u2019t just happen overnight. But I want to keep playing and enjoying my football.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Weeks after making sporting history with his county, All Ireland football champion Cian McHale was ready to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-606364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}