By Daire Walsh 

While it isn’t the main reason she found herself back on home soil, Joanne Doonan is glad she decided to make a return to the Fermanagh fold this year following an extended stint in the southern hemisphere.

Having previously lined out for Carlton during an AFL Women’s season that was ultimately not finished due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Doonan moved back to Australia in early 2022 after she was snapped up by Essendon.

Yet in addition to being delisted by Essendon at the end of their 2023 campaign in the AFLW, personal circumstances led to Doonan and her partner James McMahon (who has also played football for Fermanagh) returning to the Erne County.

Despite not having played for Fermanagh since their TG4 All-Ireland Intermediate Football Championship relegation play-off defeat to Longford on August 28, 2021, Doonan subsequently resumed her inter-county career in a Lidl NFL Division 4 clash with Wicklow in Donagh on January 28 of this year. Although the league campaign ended in a semi-final reversal to Carlow, Doonan had a pivotal role at centre half-forward when the Erne women claimed an All-Ireland junior title at the expense of Louth in Croke Park earlier this month.

“It’s different circumstances that we ended up cutting our time in Australia short. My mother-in-law, we found out she was sick, so we ended up coming home. It’s probably one of those things, she ended up passing away earlier in this year and that is why I missed the Ulster final,” Doonan explained.

“Sometimes you just look at football and whenever I came home it was definitely an outlet. Something that is consistent in your life and really positive for you in your life. I think I definitely had nearly a perspective shift in that it really is an honour.

“I think in a weird way it has just been a massive year. To be able to come home and have something positive about coming home as well too. It has just been really, really special and a special group of girls to get us through all this year as well. It’s not just me, there’s a lot of girls on the team that have things going on in their life this year that we’re doing it for.”

Courtesy of that 1-11 to 0-12 victory against the Wee County on August 4, Doonan is now amongst a select group of Fermanagh players to have won three All-Ireland junior ladies football championship crowns. More specifically, Doonan and Derrygonnelly Harps attacker Eimear Smyth are the only ones in the current Erne set-up to have started their previous successes in 2017 and 2020 as well as the most recent triumph.

Yet what was interesting about those earlier wins is that neither of them were secured in Croke Park. A Doonan goal helped Fermanagh to overcome Derry in a replayed encounter at St Tiernach’s Park, Clones in 2017, while their 2020 victory over Wicklow took place behind closed doors at Dublin’s Parnell Park towards the end of the calendar year.

In fact with four All-Ireland final defeats (two in junior and two in intermediate) supplementing drawn junior deciders in 2017 and 2022, the Fermanagh ladies were still searching for a maiden win at Croker heading into their showdown with Louth. However, with Smyth amassing a superb personal tally of 1-9, the Erne side finally tasted victory in GAA HQ.

“As much as people say it’s just a field, there’s definitely something special about playing in Croke Park. To get that first win in Croke Park, just to break that idea that we can’t win in Croke Park, I think we were just delighted,” Doonan acknowledged.

“I think everybody that plays Gaelic football, and especially anyone that gets up to county, that is all you dream of. To climb the steps in Croke Park and it was just phenomenal. It was just amazing to be able to do that.”

While the Fermanagh players hadn’t personally sampled that winning feeling in Croke Park, their manager CJ McGourty had some happy memories in the ground to call upon prior to the first weekend in August. As well as securing an All-Ireland senior club football title with Naomh Gall in 2010, noted dual star McGourty also had success there in the small ball code in the colours of his adopted Tyrone just two years ago in a Nicky Rackard Cup final against Roscommon.

The Belfast man had used his past experiences as a reference point in the lead-up to their meeting with Louth and Doonan – who was previously coached by McGourty in Queen’s University – feels this helped to put some of the Fermanagh squad at ease.

“He did speak about the experience and I just think you nearly respect him more when he knows the feeling you’re all having. He’s able to say ‘look it, you will be nervous tomorrow, there will be mistakes’ things like that and it gives you that wee bit of reassurance that it’s normal to feel this way as well.

“It is definitely easier to take it from someone that has been there themselves. Even as a forward, he’s very good and he’s very specific. You can learn a lot from him in the forward line too. It has been great to have him to be able to coach us for that as well. He has been a great addition, I have to say.”

Although Doonan will be busy in the coming weeks on the club front with Kinawley Brian Borus – she is one of nine players from the Moher Road outfit that were on the Fermanagh panel this year – she is also being kept busy away from the football pitch. March of this year saw Doonan opening a fitness centre with the aforementioned McMahon named The Stables Roslea, which is located close to where the couple have been based since their return from Australia.

“That has been our project since we came home from Australia and thankfully it’s going really well now. That has been what is keeping us busy. It’s great to have that now and we’re part of the community that we’re living in now, which is really nice to do,” Doonan added.

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