Clare’s 2013 hero Donnellan hangs up boots

CLARE’S 2013 All-Ireland senior hurling championship-winning captain Patrick Donnellan has announced his retirement from inter-county hurling.

The O’Callaghan’s Mills clubman made his senior championship debut for the Banner County against Cork in 2006 but the 32-year-old didn’t feature in this year’s summer campaign.

He suffered cruciate knee ligament damage early last year but made a comeback to wear the saffron and blue again in 2017, featuring as sub against Kilkenny, Tipperary and Waterford in the Allianz League.

Donnellan’s departure severs another link with the All-Ireland- winning squad of four years ago, following confirmation of Brendan Bugler and Colin Ryan’s retirements in the past week.

In a statement, Donnellan said: “I wish to sincerely thank everyone that has helped me and made sacrifices on my behalf to ensure that I could represent Clare to the best of my ability. To my wife Edel, my parents, my brothers and sister, I will be forever grateful.

“I will always consider myself a privileged person to have been able to play for Clare and I hope that I did my utmost for the cause while playing. It is hard to express in words what it meant to me, my family and my club to captain a Clare team.

“To be able to lift the Liam MacCarthy on behalf of Clare and its people was a dream come true and I will always be thankful that I was considered worthy of the honour to be the representative of the Clare team by Davy Fitzgerald.

“Thank you to my club O’Callaghan’s Mills, to all of my former managers and coaches who instilled a love and respect for the game in me every day I took to the field.

“I would like to thank all of the players that I have played and trained with over the years. I always felt a sense of belonging and brotherhood in a Clare dressing room and I have been lucky to be friends and teammates with you all.

“Finally, I am looking forward to supporting the team from the stands into the future.”