After another remarkable year for West Cork’s finest, sports editor KIERAN McCARTHY set himself the challenge of ranking the top 20 moments from 2024. It proved a tougher task than he had ever imagined
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1. OLYMPIC GODS – Arise, Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy and take your places amongst the Olympic gods. The Skibbereen dream team confirmed their standing as Irish sporting greats when they successfully defended their Olympic title in the men’s lightweight double sculls at the Games in Paris. Back-to-back Olympic champions, they proved again that they are the best in the world. With lightweight rowing dropped from the Olympic programme after the Paris Games, it means Paul and Fintan will be Olympic men’s lightweight double champions for eternity.
2. THE PHIL HEALY EFFECT – Phil’s talent knows no bounds. Not only did the Ballineen Bullet and the Irish women’s 4x400m relay team reach the Olympic final in Paris, she even stopped a Carbery-Beara Division 4B Football League game between Barryroe and St Oliver Plunkett’s as players watched the Olympic final on their phones! Phil and Co came so close to immortality as they finished fourth in the Olympic final, just missing out on a medal by 0.18 of a second, but they smashed the national record in a time of 3:19.90. Healy, on the third leg, produced her fastest-ever relay split.
O'Donovan Rossa's Lisa Harte and Éabha O'Donovan celebrate after winning the Cork LGFA intermediate final.
3. ROSSAS’ RISE – The Skibbereen sensations were at it again in 2024 as O’Donovan Rossa’s ladies’ footballers followed up their clean sweep of junior titles in 2023 (Cork, Munster and All-Ireland) by powering through the intermediate ranks. Winning the Cork final also guaranteed Skibb promotion to the heady heights of senior football in 2025, and they also snaffled up the Munster title (the only West Cork club to do so last season) before their incredible championship-winning run was ended with an All-Ireland intermediate semi-final loss in December. Still, what an incredible journey over two seasons by a team that won five championship titles in a row. Memories made to last a lifetime.
4. SEVENTH HEAVEN – Build his statue now because we will never see another like Paul O’Donovan. The Lisheen legend, fresh from becoming the first Irish sportsperson to win Olympic medals at three different Games (Rio, Tokyo and Paris), travelled to the World Rowing Championships in Canada in August and won his SEVENTH world title. We’re running out of superlatives here. The best lightweight rower in the world powered to gold and glory in the lightweight men’s single sculls. He has now won THREE World single sculls titles and FOUR World titles in the double sculls. As Jimmy Magee would say, different class.
5. GLORIOUS GOLEEN – The men from the Mizen peninsula were one of the standout stories from 2025. The background: Goleen footballers decided against moving up to junior A in 2024 as they wanted to win a county junior B title, having lost four finals in the years before. The result: Goleen won the county confined junior B final against Ballyphehane in July. They did it! After that they won the Carbery junior B title, and just missed out on the county junior B football double in December. It’s a year that will live long in the memory. Roll on junior A in 2025!
6. KINGS OF THE CASTLE – We have a Big Three in Cork club football, but now we have an undisputed number one. Take a bow, Castlehaven, back-to-back Cork premier senior football champions. No team could get near Seanie Cahalane’s men in 2024. They beat Clonakilty, Carbery Rangers and St Michael’s in the group stages, then took care of St Finbarr’s and Nemo Rangers in the semi-final and final respectively. The closest any side got to the Haven was the Barrs in their four-point loss. The feeling is Castlehaven are the team to beat again in 2025. The club has never won three county senior titles in a row, so there is history waiting to be made.
7. WORTH THE WAIT – He had to wait eight years to win his second Irish Tarmac Rally Championship title, but it was all worth it as Keith Cronin drove back to the top of the charts in Ireland again in 2024. In the end, the Ballylickey man won the title on a tiebreak from 2023 champion Callum Devine after a dramatic seventh and final round of a gripping battle, but Cronin was a deserving winner after a series full of highlights. His home win in the Clonakilty Park Hotel West Cork Rally in March was one to savour, as were his victories in the Galway International Rally and the Ulster Rally.
Phil Healy enjoyed a memorable 2024 season.
8. SILVER BULLET – ‘This is the stuff of dreams,’ beamed Phil Healy after she won her first senior international medal in June. This is what all the hard work is for. Phil and the Irish women’s 4x400m relay team won a sensational silver medal at the European Athletics Championships in Rome. The dream team of Phil (who ran the third leg), Sophie Becker, Rhasidat Adeleke and Sharlene Mawdsley set what was then a national record of 3:22.71 (since broken at the Olympics in Paris) to cross the line in second, behind The Netherlands. Given the challenges Phil faced in 2022 and ’23, getting her hands on a medal was extra special.
9. JACK’S THE LAD – While he has ended the year in a battle for the Ireland No. 10 jersey, let’s not forget that Jack Crowley played all 400 minutes of Ireland’s five Six Nations games this year and steered Andy Farrell’s team to the championship title in his first season as a start. Ice-cool Crowley, the Bandon RFC superstar, showed there is life after Johnny Sexton with a string of impressive performances, including scoring his first Ireland try in a 36-0 bonus-point win against Italy. Jack should be the man in possession of the No. 10 jersey heading into 2025.
10. MATHÚNAS MAGIC – The men from Diarmuid Ó Mathúnas won’t forget 2024 in a hurry, and for good reason because this was the year their hurlers hit top spot in Carbery for the first time since 2010, while their footballers came agonisingly close to making it a dream double. Qualifying for both Carbery junior A finals took a superb team effort, and to finish the season with the Flyer Nyhan Cup resting in Castletownkenneigh was the stuff of dreams. Mathúnas won it the hard way too, and defeated reigning champions Clonakilty in the group stage before eventually beating a fancied Ballinascarthy team in the replay of the final.
Clonakilty Soccer Club's Conor McKahey, Shane Buttimer and Jonathan Leahy celebrate after winning the WCL Premier Division title.
11. FINAL DAY DRAMA – What a way to win your first West Cork League Premier Division title, by pipping the defending champions and your title rivals on the last day of the season on your home patch. That’s exactly how it unfolded on June 2nd as Clonakilty Soccer Club won their first Premier Division crown on a day packed with drama and tension. Two points ahead of a Drinagh team needing to win this final-day showdown, Clonakilty got the result they wanted – a 2-2 draw was enough to see John Leahy’s men crowned league champions. Twice Drinagh led. Twice Clon equalised through Jonathon Leahy. In the end, they held on to earn the result that crowned them the best in the West Cork League. Add in their Beamish Cup final win a few weeks earlier, and the double was completed.
James O'Donovan with the gold medal he won in the senior men's Moors at the Europeans.
12. DUTCH GOLD – Not alone did Bandon bowler James O’Donovan appear on Netflix hit Bodkin during the year, but he made headlines on the road too, or, to be more precise, on the grass as he won gold in Dutch Moors bowling at the European Bowling Championships in Germany in May. It was a dramatic triumph, as he won gold by just a mere 15 centimetres. His heroics on the European stage saw James crowned 2024 Men’s Player of the Year, and no doubt his sights going into 2025 will be set on winning that elusive county senior title.
13. HISTORY-MAKERS – And the 2024 county senior B ladies’ football champions are … Clonakilty! This is a success they enjoyed in Clon, and so they should as it’s the first time the club has won a senior Cork LGFA title. After ousting the reigning champions Castlehaven in a semi-final epic, Clonakilty defeated Kinsale 2-5 to 0-5 in the final in MTU Cork in October to give captain Méabh O’Donovan the honour of lifting the cup. Clon did give the Munster senior B championship a rattle, only to be denied after extra-time in the final, but off the back of their 2024 progress, they’ll look to make a mark in the senior A in 2025.
14. REMEMBER THE NAME – Regular readers of these pages will know that we have been championing Nicola Tuthill for years, ever since she won the Irish senior women’s hammer title when she was just 16 years old. Now, the whole country knows about the talented Kilbrittain woman after a year that saw her smash the 70-metre barrier and set a new PB (70.32m), and then qualify for her first Olympic Games in Paris. There, the Bandon AC star finished 16th out of 32 competitors, and she’s only going to get better. Given Nicola won’t hit her peak until her late 20s, the best is yet to come!
Enya Breen captained Ireland twice at WXV1 in Canada.
15. ENYA ON SONG – West Cork rugby has enjoyed many magical moments in recent years, and we had another first in 2024: Enya Breen became the first West Cork native to captain an Irish senior rugby team. The Skibbereen star has established herself as a key player for Ireland, and that was recognised when Enya captained her country twice in the WXV1 tournament in Canada, first against the home team and then against the USA. The natural born leader was one of the reasons Ireland finished second in the tournament.
16. TOP OF THE WORLD – West Cork kickboxers have a reputation for packing a punch on the world stage, and 2024 was no different. At the WAKO Youth World Kickboxing Championships in Budapest in September, TWO local kickboxers won world gold. Bantry teen Oran Brady, of ION Kickboxing Club, had watched his brothers, Sean and Oisin, win world gold in recent years, and he went one better by winning TWO world titles, in the -84kg junior light contact and kick light categories. There was also success for Skibbereen’s Evan Collins, of West Cork Kickboxing Club, as he fought his way to a glorious gold in the older cadet -57kg kick light category.
17. REBELS’ ROAR – There were plenty of West Cork connections to Cork’s All-Ireland senior camogie final triumph against Galway in August, as the Rebels put back-to-back titles together. The Courcey Rovers’ duo of Fiona Keating and three-time All-Star Saoirse McCarthy both started, while Newcestown’s Ciara O’Sullivan, after missing the entire 2023 inter-county campaign with an ACL injury, came on in the second half of the win against Galway. There is the Cahalane link to Castlehaven too, and Orlaith started the final, while Meabh came on. Ger Manley’s team finishes the year as the team to beat, and the three-in-a-row will be the target in 2025.
18. CENTURION COOMBES – Gavin Coombes became only the second West Cork player to make 100 appearances for Munster when he lined out in the URC clash away to Zebre in September. While Munster lost 42-33, former Skibbereen RFC and Bandon Grammar School prodigy Coombes scored two tries to mark this notable moment in style. The 26-year-old try machine has developed into a key player for Munster, and had racked up 47 tries in just over 100 Munster appearances by the start of December.
19. BACK OF THE NET – The rise of the West Cork Academy has shone a brighter light on West Cork soccer, and the region’s U16 schoolboys squad showcased the talent in the region during 2024. Not alone did they win the SFAI All-Ireland National U16 Schoolboys Shield with a 3-0 victory over Dundalk, they won the Munster U16 Schoolboys Trophy as well after a penalty shoot-out win against Waterford. There’s a lot of work being done at grassroots level in West Cork soccer so to see local teams bring home important trophies is a reward for everyone involved.
20. GREEN MACHINE DERAILED – In the end, Cork hurlers finished the year without the cup they really wanted, but no-one will forget how the Rebels derailed Limerick in an epic All-Ireland SHC semi-final. Limerick were shaping up for an unprecedented hurling five-in-a-row, but Pat Ryan’s men tore up the script and crafted a superb 1-28 to 0-29 triumph in Croke Park, with the second-half performance going to live long in the memory.
