“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

~ George Bernard Shaw

A man with whom the comfortable status quo seldom rests easy, Derry and Slaughtneil dual star Chrissy McKaigue has his sights set on giving the youth of the Roe Valley area a taste of Ulster Colleges’ elite competitions.

Gleann na Ró – a new amalgamation of St Mary’s Limavady, NWRC and St Patrick’s Dungiven – recently played its first game in the MacLarnon Cup.

“When you look what Saint Patrick’s Maghera have been able to do, and last year with Saint Mary’s Magherafelt, it gives us a template to follow,” said McKaigue, Gaelic games coordinator at the Limavady school.

Currently preparing for Ulster club campaigns in hurling and football with Slaughtneil and having faced urban giants such as St Vincent’s (Dublin), Austin Stacks (Tralee) and Dr Crokes (Killarney) in recent years, McKaigue is ideally placed to consider the GAA from both rural and urban perspectives.

“Derry have identified that they need to get more players from their urban areas,” he explains.

“I would certainly agree with this trait of thought especially when you look the growth of urban GAA in other counties. I feel that the best way to increase the interest and education of GAA is through the schools. The work in primary schools is important but it’s in the secondary schools where we must give the players the opportunity to play competitive GAA.”

With the three educational institutions already competing in the lower levels of Ulster Colleges’ football, McKaigue is effectively challenging the level of ambition in the area by going straight into grade two. It’s a move which has been boosted by the availability of three of the Derry minor team which reached this year’s All-Ireland final.

Callum Brown, Oran Hartin and Seán McKeever will be available to the Gleann na Ró side in their maiden McLarnon campaign.

“There is little doubt that their exploits in helping Derry win the Ulster minor title this year has helped inspire players around them,” claims McKaigue. “The Roe Valley community is an area with huge potential. It is my belief, that if the players in the local area are not exposed to an elite level of Gaelic games early in their careers that they will inevitably drift away.

Gleann na Ró will join fellow Derry schools St.Pius X and Loreto Coleraine at the tier two grade in what McKaigue claims ‘will be an extremely competitive level of football’.

Always looking forward, and at the bigger picture, the Slaughtneil man hints at further ambition in years to come saying:

“Currently Derry have two schools that play grade 1 Ulster schools senior football. Personally, I feel Derry is capable of more. In the short term amalgamations may provide the opportunity to allow more of our underage to play at a higher grade of Gaelic games.”