How the Jesuit experience shaped Ger Brennan, the new Dublin football manager
Declan Bogue
THE QUOTE FROM St Ignatius Loyola, a Basque soldier turned priest who formed the Jesuits, holds that, ‘Give me the boy until he is seven, and I will show you the man.’
It is from the Jesuit approach to education, and again, we are quoting here; ‘concentrated on the holistic development of the individual, encompassing intellectual, spiritual and moral growth,’ that the new Dublin senior football manager Ger Brennan is rooted.
In a Podcast back in 2021 for Belvedere’s Faith and Services Programmes, he told of how he prays the Jesuit Examen (examination of the conscience) every day. How he listens to the school song, ‘Only in God,’ and related how he tries to invoke compassion in his dealings with young students in UCD, where he is the Gaelic Games development officer.
Appointed on a three-year arrangement as Dessie Farrell’s successor, he is now once of the most closely scrutinised figures in Irish sport.
He’s not alone in professing his religious beliefs in the GAA. Nonetheless it makes him unusual.
On 20 January 2014, just a few months after he won the All-Ireland title, he went along to St Dominic’s in Cabra to launch Catholic Schools Week.
He told students there, “I am someone who believes strongly in Jesus Christ, I believe in God incarnate and I believe that Jesus is the example, the X-Factor, for people to follow their lives by.
“It’s something I’ve been fortunate enough to have accepted and believed in from a very young age starting at home and it’s something which I drift from time to time . . . but . . . once you experience the love of Christ in your life, be it through a personal, deep or more public experience there’s no getting away from him.
“For me, faith, love of God is always an invitation, a freedom of choice and it’s something we can choose to accept or something we can choose to ignore. I think there are many challenges in the world which support us in ignoring that love of God in our lives but I think if we keep continuing to focus on the goodness within young people and believe within yourself I think everything will work out fine.”
At the time, he was in St Kevin’s, teaching Religion, Irish and History. He was also the School Chaplain.
The launch of Catholic Week wasn’t afraid to ask itself some fundamental questions. Brennan told those gathered that the holistic approach to education should include the “invisible reality” which he summed up as “my soul, my spirit, my faith in Jesus Christ.”
For the modern intercounty footballer and now manager, it all seems a little… unlikely. But so much of Brennan is unlikely.
He grew up in Dorset Street and his pathway to the fee-paying Belvedere College was through a Social Diversity Programme that took in students on scholarships.
While attending Belvedere, he naturally fell into playing a little rugby and was a couple of years ahead of Cian Healy.
Absolutely none of this is building up to some corny rags to riches narrative by the way. The Brennans were high achievers in their own right.
Their sporting pedigree can be traced to Ger’s uncle Fran who played soccer for various teams including Drumcondra, but mainly Dundalk from 1966 to 1973. He won an international cap in a friendly against Belgium in 1965 in Dalymount Park.
Another uncle, Tom Brennan was featured in an Irish Press report from February 1975.
He was an early prominent member of the Liffey Valley Club and that day he took first place in the National Senior cross-country championship in Belfield, running seven and a half miles of a twisting, challenging route in 36 minutes and 59 seconds.
He beat the course record by 29 seconds and among those left in his wake included the late Jerry Kiernan, Danny McDaid and Tom O’Riordan.
Ger Brennan grew up playing Gaelic football with St Vincent’s, but he wasn’t what you might call your typical Vincent’s man from Marino, in coming from the north inner-city.
By the time he played championship for Dublin, he became just the third man from the north inner city to represent the county in the previous 60 years. The others were Anton O’Toole and Paddy Cullen.
In an area with a population of around 120,000, you can see again how rare it is.
On the pitch, he was there from the start of the Pat Gilroy era as they transformed themselves and Gaelic football.
He made some critical interventions. In the 2011 All-Ireland final, he caught Kerry’s Declan O’Sullivan with the kind of hit that either gets a red card or turns a tide. O’Sullivan subsequently lost possession for two plays in which Dublin grabbed a goal and a point.
He kicked two points against Mayo that defied belief
After retiring in October 2014, he continued to play on for St Vincent’s and became a high-profile supporter for a ‘No’ vote in the 2015 Marriage Equality referendum.
Writing in The Irish Independent at the time, he said, “I know I’ll be targeted for it and labelled for it. It would have been easier to keep my mouth shut and not rock the boat. But I’m sick of the accusations being flung around that if you vote ‘No’ you are homophobic. I know I’m not homophobic; my gay friends and family can attest to that. I am voting “No” because I don’t want our Constitution to deny that it is a good thing for a child to have a mother and a father.
“The Universal Declaration on Human Rights proclaims that everybody is equal in dignity and it holds that marriage is a male-female union. I don’t think the Declaration of Human Rights is homophobic. I’m voting ‘No’.”
Along the way, he got his first break coaching at county level under Niall Carew at Carlow in 2020.
His involvement with UCD brought him further into that world but all the same, it was a small surprise when he took over Louth following Mickey Harte’s shock departure in 2023.
Bringing the Wee County to their first Leinster title in 68 years represented a modern-day Gaelic football miracle. He could do anything he wanted after that, but Dessie Farrell stepping down in Dublin made him the obvious move.
A decade ago, you could happily have made the argument for hours on end that the easiest job in Gaelic football was that of the Dublin manager; plenty of players, great facilities, nobody living too far from home, permanent residents of Croke Park, and so on.
Those arguments have dried up. Different rules will apply for Brennan. Old Dublin town hums with the possibilities. Who is coming back? Where are they at? What levels can they reach?
What happens next will be fascinating. Comes with the gig.
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