HE WAS BORN in Mullaghbawn, Armagh, 48 years ago, an unlikely starting point for a man who’d help down the All Blacks. As a child he was a Gaelic football fanatic, a trait that would stay with him through his teens and into his early 20s. After turning 25, he was an All-Ireland winner, a corner-back on the Armagh team that defeated Kerry in the 2002 final. At the same time he was entering the GAA’s history books, Enda McNulty was getting his head stuck into his psychology books. He’d graduate from Queen’s but it was the advice of a wise old fireman from a different Queens that would prove the unlikeliest of inspirations for Ireland’s first ever win over the All Blacks in Soldier Field in 2016. Most of you won’t have heard of Dessie Ryan. He’s well into the autumn of his life now but when it was spring, he was a champion, winning National League titles with New York GAA in the 1960s, heading up the fire department in the New York borough of Queens where life and death were daily aspects of his job spec. By the ‘90s he was back home in Derry, retired from work, not from football. “The most knowledgeable GAA man I’ve ever met,” was Eamon Coleman’s description of Ryan. Coleman, in case you need reminding, managed Derry to their only All-Ireland title in 1993. Seven years later, Ryan was passing on his football knowledge to someone else, McNulty. “But he is so much more than a football coach,” says McNulty, the Irish rugby team’s sports psychologist up until 2019. “He moulds people, inspires them.” It was Ryan who McNulty turned to six weeks out from the All Blacks game. “Dessie, I’m meeting Joe Schmidt in three days’ time,” McNulty said to him. “This is what I’m thinking of saying.” Ryan listened; Ryan probed; Ryan more or less impersonated Schmidt without mimicking the New Zealander’s accent. He wasn’t just a sounding board to an old pupil, much more like an audio book inserted into McNulty’s head, offering solid, practical advice, diluting the mumbo-jumbo stuff he’d read in textbooks, articulating plans and strategies in simple, plain language. McNulty says: “Dessie taught us all how to be leaders, how to be men, how to integrate mental toughness into our everyday work.” By the time McNulty and Schmidt sat down for coffee, the Armagh man knew what he had to say. His words to the then Ireland rugby coach were pretty much the same words Ryan had delivered to a Queen's Gaelic football team 16 years earlier - the year the university won the Sigerson Cup. Now, if you just wanted to focus on sporting success alone, that triumph was as much of a morality tale as a football story. Everything they achieved smacked of perseverance. “Ah, we had a wee bit of luck too,” says Ryan, now a man of 85. Yet in sport, and life, luck is often the first cousin of persistence. Yes, Queen’s had some fortune. But they also had leaders. John Kremer, their sports psychologist, was one. Then there were McNulty, Diarmuid Marsden, Paddy McKeever, Cormac McAnallen and Philly Jordan going on to win All-Ireland medals with Armagh and Tyrone later that decade. None of their wins were easy. They beat Sligo by a goal in round one, St Mary’s courtesy of two late goals in round two, UCC from five points down in the semis, UCD after extra time in the final. “There was a wee bit of magic about that side,” says Jack Devanney, a committee member of that team and unusually for that era, a southerner from Longford who had migrated to the North. He’s chosen to walk the road less travelled. Ceasefires had been announced in 1994, Jack arriving in Belfast to begin his new life a month later. He never went back, falling in love with a city and a province that is warm in every way bar the climate. “There were many good footballers,” he says of that side in 2000, “and that’s an important part of any successful team. “More than that, though, there were good people. Leaders, definitely. Dessie was at the heart of it. Aidan O’Rourke called him a Mr Miyagi type figure - you know the man from The Karate Kid. “He was inspiring. I remember one game, the semi-final win over UCC. It bucketed down right through the second half. Dessie was so engrossed in the match that it wasn’t until we got back to the dressing room that he realised it had been raining. “He’s a kind, warm, generous, studious, knowledgeable, inspiring man. We’re all lucky to have had him in our lives.” All this became apparent a fortnight ago when the Boys of 2000 met up again in Belfast to commemorate the 25th anniversary of that Sigerson victory. Dessie, at 85, was the star attraction. Everyone who could make it was there. But it was the people who were absent who were remembered. That night, at the celebratory dinner, each Queen’s player was presented with a replica jersey from 2000. On the back was No17, Cormac McAnnellen’s squad number. This was their way of showing how Cormac’s legacy lives on. “He strongly featured in our hearts and minds that night,” says McNulty. He always has. On the day he was laid to rest, in 2004, all the Queen’s team were there. Fast forward 19 years. Another tragedy. One of the young doctors on the Queen’s team in 2000 was Noel McElvanna, a first cousin of former Armagh All-Ireland winning squad player, Kevin McElvanna, whose wife died in a tragic car accident in November 2023. After the four-vehicle crash, Noel arrived at the scene of the accident. He had to instantly step up as a leader in that moment of crisis to help his cousin deal with a harrowing tragedy. Aidan Cole, another of the Queen’s players in 2000, worked in the hospital where the injured party were brought. He too stepped up. A quarter of a century earlier, Dessie Ryan had told his players ahead of their Sigerson final that if they were to win, they’d be a band of brothers for life. Little did he, or the players, know that they would have to support one another in such tragic circumstances. But they did. On the day of Ciara McElvanna’s funeral, all the Queen’s boys were there, still a team, still together. And standing next to them was Dessie Ryan. McNulty says: “I’d say the bond between us all is tighter than ever. A huge impact on that is Dessie and Sean (O’Neill). We’ve had a powerful impact on each other’s lives.” That continues to be the case. That reunion dinner reminded them of life’s peaks and valleys, the victories on the pitch, the losses off it. As a group of footballers they achieved so much but as people they have achieved more, becoming fathers, captains of industry, coaches, leaders. Devanney, the Longford native, became Down’s county board chairperson for five years; McNulty is Ireland's leading sports psychologist of his generation. More than anything, though, they’re still a team, a quarter of a century after they last put on a set of jerseys. “They made me as much as I made them,” says Ryan, with a typical degree of humility. “We were blessed.” And they remain so. Quite possibly they are one of the greatest teams in Ulster football history. Most certainly they are one of the best kept secrets. But no longer. Their story deserves to be told. * Enda McNulty's company works in training, coaching and advising leaders and teams in sport and professional companies. See www.mcnultyperformance.com To keep up to date with all the latest GAA news, sign-up to our GAA newsletter here.