Breheny at 40: Still making a mark in sport and Sligo life
Former Sligo player Mark Breheny has just turned 40. The St Mary’s ace chats about teaching at Summerhill College and passing on advice to the next generation of Gaelic footballers
FORTY. For some people it is one of the dreaded ‘F’ words in life. Mark Breheny turned 40 on Monday of this week.
However, the ex-Sligo player, now part of the Sligo Senior management team as a selector, does not at all appear fazed by this milestone.
The former county team captain was, however, a little more concerned about the interview.
“You might fill me in …. on what the idea was behind the chat again,” he says at the start of the interview.
The purpose of the interview is this, Mark, a public announcement of your turning what can be perceived as the wrong side of 39. Or maybe think of it more as a celebration.
One ‘F’ that the Sligo man is interested in, though, was introduced at the very beginning of the conversation: Fatherhood.
Happily chatting away, his little three-year-old girl was ready to join the conversation, asking some questions herself. If she is anything like the Breheny side of the family, with a father, uncle and cousin representing their county in Senior Gaelic football, it is probably best to start practicing early for sporting interviews. With a seven-year-old son too, Mark is obviously kept on his toes despite having retired from the inter-county playing scene – he stepped down from Sligo duty in January 2018.
A secondary school teacher by profession,
Mark only half-jokingly admitted that “it is easier to be in school, I think – minding 20 teenagers than a little three-year-old, but good craic.”
Once everyone was settled, it was time to talk about the next major ‘F’ in
Mark’s life: Football.
HAVING served 17 seasons for Sligo at Senior level and being retired from the inter-county scene for the last three years, Mark described his county career as follows: “It was long and there were a lot of ups and downs, but I really enjoyed it.” So how does he fill his time since retiring from county football?
“I’m busy with things happening at home and kind of club football.” Since his inter-county retirement, Mark has continued, and still continues, to play a pivotal role for his club St Mary’s.
He featured for the Aidan Rooney-managed team in last year’s Sligo Senior Football Championship – St
Mary’s were county semi-finalists – and twice won the Owen B Hunt Cup in 2001 and 2015.
The Summerhill College teacher has also watched local soccer games and recently tried playing tennis with his son.
“Football probably totally engrossed me over the years,” he said. This is set to continue since he joined new Sligo manager Tony McEntee’s backroom team.
As he waits for Sligo’s campaign to get going, with collective training on hold due to current Covid-19 restrictions, Mark has turned to other things to fill whatever downtime the kids and work allow him.
“Reading and running really would be the main two [within the 5k limit]. Going out for walks at the moment as well. Sligo is a great place for scenic walks. Things like that would keep me busy in fairness.”
But his new role in inter-county management shows that he is still thinking about football.
“You don’t really know what you want to be as you’re going through the school years.”
“I used to look at my teachers who used to bring us away to GAA matches and I thought: ‘you know what, I might fancy a bit of that’, because you’re going away to the matches and you’re coaching teams. You still have the sport element as part of your job.”
It is evident that Mark likes his teaching job, not just because of the Gaelic football element.
He has “the enjoyment of coaching teenagers and seeing them develop as footballers.”
In both coaching and teaching capacities, his decades of learning on and off the pitch is something this Sligo man obviously wants to share. “The advice you would have got over the years, like, I carry all of that forward now.
“Even my job as a teacher, now as a selector with Sligo, you’re bringing any positive stuff that you would have
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“Some Monday mornings, pupils would be slagging you about Sligo losing and sometimes when we won, they wouldn’t know about it.”
BORN:
CLUB:
POSITION:
SLIGO SENIOR DEBUT:
CONNACHT SENIOR C’SHIP DEBUT:
HIS SLIGO SENIOR MANAGERS:
CHAMPIONSHIP APPEARANCES: learned over the years.”
“These are the kind of learning truths that you bring forward in life.” However, teaching maths and business studies is only part of the enjoyment of working at Summerhill, a secondary school in Sligo town.
CHAMPIONSHIP SCORES:
ON TARGET:
MEATH AND MEATH:
BREHENYFILE
“With the football element, you can coach the lads and get away for matches and try to develop them that way as well, so maybe my interest in Gaelic football nearly prompted me a little bit to go to the classroom.” A little? It sounds as though the football
ANOTHER ‘F’ Mr Breheny holds as important: Fun. “That bit of banter is always good as well in the classroom.” Teachers and coaches, take note.
“The students would be asking me other questions, like tips on nutrition and strength and conditioning, what are you doing at the moment and maybe psychological stuff that I learnt from Sligo that could help lads. “There have been teacher versus student matches actually, one or two years as well and that was good craic.”
For Mark, being a GAA player helped “the engagement level” of his students. “They could relate to me as in an athlete, not just a teacher, or not just a ‘Mr Breheny’ or ‘sir’. They could see that I had another