Brian McEniff

McEniff was born in Bundoran, County Donegal.

His parents were Mr. John McEniff from Newbliss, County Monaghan, and Elizabeth Begley from Carrickmore, County Tyrone.[5] They were married in Bundoran in 1935. McEniff has three brothers: P. J. McEniff (retired dentist), Sean McEniff (Donegal County Councillor) and Liam McEniff (doctor), and one sister, Mary McGlynn (retired hotel accountant).

He spent much of his childhood in Carrickmore, where his mother's family had a farmhouse.[5]

He attended a boarding school in County Monaghan.[2]

McEniff supported Tyrone against Louth in the 1957 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final, his first visit to Croke Park.[5]

After returning from Canada in the mid-1960s, McEniff took up an interest in playing the sport.[6]

His position was in defence as a wing-back.[1][6]

McEniff won numerous titles with the famous St Joseph's combination of Bundoran and Ballyshannon, both in Donegal and Ulster. He won Donegal Senior Football Championships with St Joseph's in 1965, 1968, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1976.[6] He won his last County Senior Football Championship with Réalt na Mara in 1979,[6] which included the late Brendan McHugh and Seamus Reilly, both county representatives for Sligo, Mayo and Donegal. He captained St Joseph's to the 1968 Ulster Senior Club Football Championship final.[2]

He continued working to promote his club long into retirement.[7] He managed them as recently as 2013.[2][4]

McEniff was player-manager of the first Donegal team to win an Ulster Senior Football Championship title in 1972.[7][8][9] He received an All Star award in 1972.[8][7]

He was also player-manager of the 1974 Ulster SFC winning team.[8][9] He was wing-back in the final as Donegal defeated Down.[6]

In 1975, the Donegal County Board ousted McEniff as manager.[8][10]

In 1975, he assisted as a mentor the Sligo team that won that county's second Connacht Senior Football Championship.[1][8] Upon being made aware that he would be taking charge of Sligo's training sessions, Barnes Murphy, the team captain, talked to McEniff.[11] Murphy brought McEniff to Croke Park for the 1975 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final against Kerry ("although some of our friends in Sligo weren't too happy about that", Murphy told The Irish Times in 2007).[11] McEniff, according to Murphy, could not provide advice to the team at half-time: "And I can tell you why, because they [Murphy had also brought along John "Tull" Dunne] were snubbed. They wanted to make a few changes, and I was wondering where these men where, to give us some advice".[11] Sligo were routed by The Kingdom, 3–13 to 0–5.[11]

He later returned as Donegal manager, for the first time as a non-playing member of the team.[8] He was manager in 1977.[12] He was manager again by late 1982.[12] He led Donegal to a third Ulster SFC in 1983.[9] They narrowly lost to Galway in the 1983 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final.[6]

He left again.

He began to manage the Ulster provincial football team, with which he won 12 Railway Cup Finals.[8][7] He managed them for 23 years, until 2008.[13] He managed them from 1983 to 2007. McEniff stood down from his position as Ulster manager in 2007, 25 years after taking the job in 1982. He woon 14 titles.[14]

He helped Tyrone club Carrickmore, where his mother was from, when they were struggling against relegation in 1983 and 1986.[5]

McEniff returned as Donegal manager in 1989, succeeding Tom Conaghan.[15][16] He led the county to another Ulster SFC in 1990, restoring players that Conaghan had thrown by the wayside, such as Declan Bonner, Manus Boyle, Matt Gallagher, Barry McGowan and Sylvester Maguire.[16] McEniff's success in Gaelic games culminated when he led his native Donegal team to glory over Dublin at Croke Park in the 1992 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final.[17][18] It was shortly before this match that McEniff was informed that the brother of one of his players Joyce McMullan, had died from cancer.[18] He chose not to inform McMullan or anyone else on the team until after the match.[18] McEniff later described it as follows: "Everything had gone so smoothly but when I heard that I was knocked for six. Luckily, the lads were outside watching a bit of the minor match. I stamped up and down before deciding that Gerard would have wanted Joyce to play. When the team came back, they could see something was wrong with me, but I managed to hold it together".[18] It later emerged that there had been a miscommunication, and that McMullan's brother had not died.[18] He did so a year later.[18]

McEniff resigned on 26 June 1994 and was succeeded by P. J. McGowan the following month.[19]

McEniff managed Ireland for the International Rules Series of 2000 and 2001.[8] Ireland won 2001's first test, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 12 October, by 59–53 and the second test, held at Football Park in Adelaide on 19 October, by 71–52.[20] McEniff departed as Ireland manager in 2001.[21]

He soon returned for a last outing as Donegal manager. He was chairman of the Donegal County Board in late 2002 but could not find a manager, so he did it himself.[8] McGowan, Michael Oliver McIntyre and Anthony Harkin were part of his backroom team.[23] In 2003, he led Donegal to the All-Ireland SFC semi-final.[6] This was the last occasion on which they would achieve this feat until the time of the legendary Jim McGuinness. He left Donegal in 2005 after a fifth and final tenure in charge ended with a drab qualifier defeat to Cavan at Breffni Park.[24][25] During his final time as manager, McEniff called such players as Neil Gallagher, Rory Kavanagh, Karl Lacey and Eamon McGee into the senior county team for the first time in late 2003.[23]

McEniff was mentor to Nell McCafferty on the Celebrity Bainisteoir television programme in 2007.

In 2010 and 2011, McEniff assisted Louth manager Peter Fitzpatrick in an advisory capacity, during which time Louth reached the 2010 Leinster Senior Football Championship Final.[4][8][26][27] In November that year, it was widely reported that he would become one of Fitzpatrick's selectors for the following season, with both Highland Radio and Hogan Stand claiming he would replace the departing Martin McQuillan.[26][27][28] McEniff later denied this, though Louth County Board Chairman Padraic O'Connor said McEniff would be a "great capture" and would not be paid.[29]

He managed his local club in the 2013 Donegal Senior Football Championship, taking over from Joe Keeney after his resignation and filling the position in his 71st year.[30]

McEniff has guided both Jim McGuinness and Declan Bonner, his most noteworthy successors as Donegal manager, into management.[5][31][32][33]

Involved in Gaelic games administration in County Donegal, McEniff also spent time as Donegal's GAA Central Council delegate.[13] He served on national Gaelic games committees.[13] He has also been a referee.[35] He is Managing Director of the McEniff Hotel Group, which has a presence in such locations as Bundoran, Drumcondra, Sligo, Rosses Point and Westport, County Mayo.[36] Its portfolio includes the Holyrood Hotel (originally bought by his father John in 1951) and the Great Northern Hotel & Golf links (bought from CIÉ in 1977 by Brian and Sean McEniff and Brian's brother-in-law Michael Burke for £125,000). In 1969, McEniff bought the Hamilton Hotel which was next door to the Holyrood Hotel.

On 7 June 1979, McEniff was elected onto Donegal County Council[37] in lieu of his older brother Sean McEniff. Even though his father was a strong Fine Gael supporter, his mother was a supporter of Fianna Fáil.

He was appointed to the board of Ireland West Airport in 2002.[36]

McEniff is married to Cautie.[38]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Brian McEniff

Player

• Ulster Senior Football Championship: 1972,[7] 1974[8][6]
• Donegal Senior Football Championship: 1965,[6] 1968,[6] 1970,[6] 1973,[6] 1974,[6] 1975,[6] 1976,[6] 1979[6]

Manager

• All-Ireland Senior Football Championship: 1992[18]
• Ulster Senior Football Championship: 1972,[9] 1974,[9] 1983,[9] 1990,[16] 1992[7]
• Railway Cup: 1983, 1984, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2007
• International Rules Series: 2001[20][21]

Individual

• All Star: 1972[7][8]
• In August 2011, McEniff was inducted into the MBNA Kick Fada Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Croke Park.[13][40]
• In May 2012, the Irish Independent named him in its selection of Donegal's "greatest team" spanning the previous 50 years.[41]
• In 2017, the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) chose McEniff and Kilkenny hurler Eddie Keher as its recipients of lifetime achievement awards.[6][42]
• On 19 April 2018, McEniff was presented with an All-Ireland Lifetime Achievement Award at the All-Ireland Business Summit.[43]
• In May 2020, the Belfast Telegraph named him as one of the "inspirational quartet" who would feature on Ulster GAA's Mount Rushmore.[8]