By Daire Walsh

Following a couple of seasons where she found herself in and out of the side, 2025 has seen Megan Downes establishing herself as a regular starter for the Clare ladies footballers.

Regularly used off the bench over the past two years – including as a 12th minute substitute in their TG4 All-Ireland intermediate football championship final defeat to Kildare at Croke Park in August 2023 – Downes was only occasionally selected in a Banner starting line-up amidst a strong competition for places within their ranks.

However, this spring saw her making the first 15 for the seven games Clare played in Division Two of the Lidl National Football League and she has also been a key figure for her native county in the three encounters they have played to date in the Munster Senior ‘B’ Football Championship.

The latter competition concludes for Clare tomorrow afternoon (12pm) with a showpiece decider against Limerick in Mallow and it is anticipated Downes will have a pivotal role to play for Graham Shine’s outfit.

“It has been a positive year for me. Last year and the year before, I was kind of in and out, and up and down. I was always getting game time, but never really a consistent starter. It has been great for me. I think the consistency through the league, as a player it builds your confidence as well. You get a spot and you can become almost like a part of that team,” Downes remarked.

“Whereas sometimes it is hard to come off the bench, but the bench is so important. I’ve seen it from both sides of the coin as well. I’m delighted with how I’m beginning to get that consistency in my own game, but obviously for the good of the team I’ll do whatever they ask me to do or play wherever I’m put.”

Due to the fact Clare and Limerick are the only teams from the province in the All-Ireland intermediate and junior football championships respectively, this Munster Senior ‘B’ competition was established – with the inclusion of second teams from Kerry and Cork – to provide both counties with an opportunity to secure game time ahead of their national campaigns.

Regardless of how the action unfolds in Mallow tomorrow, Clare know they are set to face Wexford and Offaly in Group 4 of the TG4 All-Ireland intermediate championship. A home encounter against the latter next Sunday (June 1) will be a massive game for the Banner in the context of their season, but Downes and her team-mates are nevertheless hell-bent on achieving a positive outcome this weekend.

“To be honest, the 1st of June has been the target since the 1st of November last year. We’ve always just had championship as our main goal this year. Everything we’ve done and everything the lads have prepared us for is for the 1st of June and the first weekend of championship,” Downes explained.

“We’re really looking forward to it. We’re ready for it and we’re excited for it, but again we’re not really looking past Sunday either. We have a job to do on Sunday. We’ll need to perform as a team and get a good result.”

From a GAA-mad household – albeit she also tried her hand at rugby, soccer, horse riding and taekwondo in the past – Downes says that she started playing for her club Cooraclare ‘as soon as I could walk’.

She won an intermediate county championship with the Milesians back in 2019 and a couple of years later the club was put on the map from a national - if not a global – perspective.

Although he hails from Maynooth in Co. Kildare, the Academy Award-nominated actor Paul Mescal has strong links to Cooraclare through his father Paul Sr. being a native of the West Clare village. As part of a fundraising drive to raise funds for some much-needed facilities, Mescal donated a pair of O’Neills shorts that he had signed to Cooraclare GAA for a raffle.

During a subsequent appearance on The Graham Norton Show in the UK, Mescal spoke about this particular fundraiser and how the winner of the raffle (West Clare farmer Noel Ryan) was well acquainted with his extended family.

The former Kildare underage footballer continues to be a regular visitor to the club and, additionally, Downes is a team-mate of his relatives Clodagh and Aoibhinn Mescal – both of whom are part of the Clare minor ladies panel for 2025.

“The twins, they’re very good players as well. Really nice girls. We would play together on our adult team, so I’d know them very well. They just work hard and get on with it. He [Paul Mescal] dips in every now and again.

“It’s very funny when he comes back, because nobody really bats too much of an eyelid around because we’re like ‘they’re the Mescals’ or whatever. He has been good to the club with sponsorship, as far as I’m aware, with the shorts and all that kind of thing.”

While it is just a pastime for some, Downes’ working life also revolves around sport. After initially studying sport and exercise science in the University of Limerick, she undertook a masters in performance coaching for a two-year period at Setanta College.

After finishing her third level education, Downes started up her own sport science and strength & conditioning business. This has led to her working with a number of teams on a consistent basis – including some of the juvenile sides in Cooraclare itself.

“They [Cooraclare] have been really good to me and I do a lot of underage stuff with them. Then I have a senior men’s team as well. It’s busy, you’re gone every night of the week,” Downes added.

“Everyone always says that to me, but I’m like ‘well, that’s what I’d be doing like!’ I just love it and you never feel like you’re going to work. It is great and you’d be constantly learning off different coaches.

“Even as a coach myself, I’m always on the line and I’m looking at the coaches coaching other teams being like ‘what can I take from them?’ For my own game, but also my professional career. It’s brilliant.”

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