Na Fianna set to celebrate ten-year triumph

On October 4th, 2025, a ten-year dream was realised when Na Fianna’s senior ladies team finally brought home the Kildare Junior ‘A’ Football Championship. The club will celebrate this historic achievement when they host their dinner dance this coming Friday, February 6th, in Lawlor's of Naas at 7pm.

Speaking with The Kildare Nationalist, Manager Amanda Donnelly reflected on the success of 2025 and everything that led up to that point.

"Realistically, we controlled the game from start to finish," Donnelly said of the final. "It was played in Kilcock, the weather that weekend wasn't great, a couple of games were postponed, but we were lucky enough for ours to go ahead.

"We played with the wind in the first half and we were ten points up going in at half time. We got up and running fairly handy. Mikaela McKenna got Player to Match and she got off to a lively start with a goal and a couple of points in the first few of minutes.

"We knew coming back out into the second half that they'd have the wind, and they have a couple of nice forwards, Celbridge. I had my homework done to be honest on them, so we knew who we had to stop. We made a couple of changes, for the fourth quarter we ended up winning by nine points (2-14 to 1-8).

“I'm only a blow in, now, but I have that feather in my cap that I got them over the line. There was big pressure there to try and get the win so, to get over the line was absolutely a dream come true for them."

The victory was the culmination of a decade-long journey that saw the club fall short on seven separate occasions.

In September, when they beat Moorefield in the quarter-finals and then Athy in the semis, Na Fianna set up their eighth final in ten years – a seriously impressive record in one sense, but also an agonising journey of near-misses, what-might-have-beens and better-luck-next-years.

The kind of resilience needed to bounce back from seven defeats in nine years only to finally get over the line at the eighth time of asking is quite astounding - and proof, if any were needed, that Na Fianna is more than a club, it’s a family. Because only a family could stick together after so much pain, keep on fighting, and come out the other side.

There were some monumental performances in the final, including that of captain, Doireann Peelo Dennehy, vice captain, Hayley Wiltshire, and Player of the Match, Michaela McKenna. But the biggest roar of the day was saved for the late introduction off the bench of club stalwart, Tara Higgings, who injured her ACL last February and was subsequently brought into Donnelly’s back-room team.

“I brought Tara in as part of the management team because she was a huge asset to me to have on the sideline,” the manager said. “She was massive in terms of her contribution. And for her to be able to come on in the final for the last few minutes was, I suppose, her reward for all her hard work – and the roar she got from the sidelines, because she’s a big part of Na Fianna and Ballyteague.” 

The other coaches involved were Mark Curran from Ballyteague and Liam Melia from Ellistown. Donnelly, herself an Athy woman, has plenty on her plate. As well as running the show at Na Fianna, she also coaches the Dublin minors and SETU Carlow, and has brought all her experience to the Kildare club.

Na Fianna is an amalgamation of Allenwood and Ballyteague, playing most of their home games and training predominantly in Ballyteague and occasionally on the AstroTurf pitch in Allenwood. They are already back in training for the year ahead, with their schedule spanning a wide area of the county.

“We're on the Curragh at the weekends. We're doing spinning classes in K Leisure in Newbridge on Thursday nights in the month of January. On Tuesdays we're doing circuit training over in St Farnan’s School in Prosperous,” Donnelly explained.

“Once February comes, we'll get back up and start playing our challenge matches. Pitches are restricted at the minute, so you have to try and find a compromise in terms of trying to get them up and running.

“But the girls are brilliant. I would hold them very much accountable to each other. And if they miss a session, they have to put in their own sessions. So, if they're on a college team, or if they're playing, say, another sport, that's fine. I'll work with them on that. But if they're not, they have to put in the work, whether it's a gym session, or they're going to do a run, or whatever it is. They're very much accountable to each other.” 

So how does the manager see Na Fianna fairing in 2026 as they prepare to make the step up to the intermediate championship?

“I would be confident enough that we can stay up,” Donnelly said. “And, you know, when you look at success, what is success? Success last year was to win the championship.

“At the start of the year, I would have ask the girls to set out their goals. Whether they were individual or as a team, I wanted to know what their goals were. They wrote it down and sent it back to me, and I printed them off and brought it to the day of the final.

“Every one of the lines on it, from all the players that filled it in, was ‘win the championship’, ‘win the championship’, ‘win the championship’. And this was back last January.

“I kind of stripped him apart when I came in. The thing about it was that they had always played quite defensive football. I turned that on its head, and we now play fast, attacking football. That's the football that I like because to be able to compete at a high level, that's the style of football that you need to play. The game is changing. 

“When I went in and took them over, they played very different football - very different. And it took an awful long time for the mindset to change and to play the way I wanted them to play.

“Before we ever went in and played a competitive game last year, we played eight challenge games. And that was for me to identify who were the players that were going to win this championship for this club.

“It was a blank canvas. It was a clean slate. Everybody got the opportunity going in.

“There was girls there that would have never had a look in, say, in the previous years. But they ended up starting in the 15 because they had the right attitude. And I knew that I could get this one playing here, this one playing there, you know, playing in a position where they can actually go in and add value."

Despite the success, his may only be the beginning for Na Fianna. “We only really started to play the way I wanted them to play come the back end of Championship. So, the foundation is there now to hit the ground running this year. We have the players ready to go and we have the game plan. Now we just have to drive it on," Donnelly continued. 

“And a lot of it's in the head. A lot of it is mental. It's not all having the best players on the pitch in terms of skill, but it’s who has the hardest workers - the girls that will run through a brick wall for you’ the girls that will empty the tank and have nothing left to give.

“Will we win silverware this year? Never rule anything in or out, you know. But what is success? Success for us is to be competitive at intermediate. And I would be aiming for a semi-final in the league.

“Progression and development: that’s our goal. Last year, we retained our Division 2 status in the league and we were competitive in games. We were there, thereabouts “Will we win Silverware this year? Who knows. But absolutely we'll be competitive. And we'll hold our own. Because there's new players coming in, you know, and we’ve only lost one girl from last year who is gone overseas with work.

“So, we're in a good place. We're just trying to keep the mindset right. And it is, you know. We had 37 in training last Tuesday night. There’s only 26 bikes in the spinning class, but every single bike is being used. And in the Curragh in the mornings there’s at least 20. So, we’re in a really good place.”

Peelo Dennehy: "It was incredible - a long time coming"

Na Fianna are led from the back by captain Doireann Peelo Dennehy, who says the buzz of her side's historic achievement is still reverberating around the club all these months later. 

"Oh my goodness, it was incredible - a long time coming," the captain said of the final.

"We're back training now, so it's kind of mental to come back and not be starting from square one and thinking about where everything went wrong. Instead, we're building, so it's class.

"It's so different, to have the girls at training be buzzing to be back and not be sore from losing, not be setting out to make amends for what we did wrong - we're actually able to enjoy what we did right."

Peelo Dennehy has been in the panel consistently since 2019 and was named captain for the first time at the beginning of the 2025 season.

"There's girls there that have bounced back more times than I have. Some girls there have been through all seven losses, but there was a sense that we had it in us, we were able to do it," she said.

"We were competing with the teams that we were losing against, beating them in league, beating them in the early rounds of Championship and then just not really performing on the day and losing in the Championship final.

"So, we knew we had the capabilities of it, but we just were not getting it right; we knew definitely we could do it, and we were building and building every year.

The captain also hailed the significance of Tara Higgins to the team: "Tara went down in just our second league game and she was such a big loss - she was our vice captain at the start of the year.

"But she stayed really involved in the team. She was helping us with training sessions, coaching, organising breakfast mornings, organising team bonding. She was doing the Lord's work - she was fantastic. 

"And then she started saying how she'd love to be able to put the jersey back on, and do the warm-up with us in the final. That was her goal; so, then our goal became to get past the semi-final at least and whatever about doing it for us, we needed to get over the line there so that Tara can tog out with us.

"There was big pressure on us then and it was very emotional when we did win the semi-final to know that Tara would be able to put on the jersey and line out and do the warm-up. And then for her to get on was just amazing."

The club are looking forward to their dinner dance this coming Friday, but the new season is already well underway, and the captain is abrim with positivity.

"We're digging in now to look forward to staying, hopefully, in Division 2 and staying in Intermediate," she said, adding that Na Fianna would be familiar with most of the clubs in the championship, having played most of them in junior finals over the years.