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22 Oct 2025

Conor Farrell reflects on an amazing year for St Mary's Kiltoghert

Conor Farrell reflects on an amazing year for St Mary's Kiltoghert

Conor Farrell pictured with his brothers Brian & Daire and the Fenagh Cup after St Mary's Kiltoghert Leitrim SFC Final victory Picture: Willie Donnellan

We're back to that time of the year where we look back and look forward at the same time and in the Observer sports department, we're no different! Or maybe we know what works as we return with our popular sports review of 2022 over the next few weeks.

Like last year, we've asked some of the county's brightest sports stars to look back over the last 12 months along with some of those journalists on the sports beat around the county.

For Conor Farrell, 2022 was an amazing year that saw him lead St Mary’s Kiltoghert, along with fellow joint captain Nicholas McWeeney, to the club’s first Leitrim SFC title since 2013 so we asked him to look back on his highs and lows of the past 12 months.

Highlight of the Year

Winning the senior championship and the weeks that followed.

Lowlight of the Year

Losing to Tourlestrane in the Connacht semi-final – nothing worse than regrets and we have a few from our second half performance.

With the controversy over the staging of the World Cup in Qatar, what’s your view on the role of sport and politics/ social issues - should they mix? 

I think there always has been that mix and there always will be. Whether they should mix or not is probably an endless debate. Sports people are role models to so many, especially those on a global or national stage. Their voice and actions carry a certain weight. My view would be that if individuals feel strongly enough about a specific issue, then I think they should use their platform to either show their support or shed light on whatever that issue might be. It’s a shame we didn’t see more players break rank during the World Cup to show solidarity with the people affected by the well documented issues in Qatar.

Personality of the Year

There’s a few people within the club that I could mention here, but I'm going to go with our club secretary Maureen Diffley. Maureen has such a passion for our club and the GAA and was a key figure in ensuring everything ran so smoothly for us this year.

What are the big challenges facing Leitrim sport in 2023

Finance - just focussing on the Leitrim Senior football team, there are two games abroad this year, London in the league and New York in the championship. I’ve seen a couple of articles recently highlighting the costs involved in running intercounty teams and the recurring theme seems to be that spend is at an all-time high. You would hope that with the championship opener being in New York, that through central funding, sufficient support will be provided to help meet these costs for what will be a unique year for Leitrim footballers.

Event that made me go wow in 2022

I saw Barcelona play at the Camp Nou in October. The stadium, atmosphere and seeing what players at that level can do in the flesh was a brilliant experience.

One thing I’d do to make sport better in 2023

As a defender, I’d love to see the mark go!

Team of the Year

Has to be Kerry. Won everything they could in 2022.

One to watch in 2023

If he can fill out a bit, Gavin Reynolds! For a guy so young, he had such an influential year for us and I'm sure he'll build on this even further in 2023.

Check out next week's Observer for more in the sporting review of the year from Aine Tighe, Shane Mallon, Darren Mulvey, PJ Leddy & John Connolly

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