For the New York-based Monaghan community, the Monaghan club has often been the glue that binds them together, years and decades after they left their homeland. We caught up with Bernie McEntee, a former Harps player who has been heavily involved with the GAA in the Big Apple since emigrating in 1994.

For Bernie McEntee, it started as a holiday. A month away to New York, for the small matter of the 1994 World Cup. He was 23, and New York got under his skin. A month turned into three months, three to six, six months to a year. Sixteen years later, he's still there, and he'll hardly be going home now.
Married to Siobhan Gibbons (whose mother Mary Boyle hailed from Scotstown), with whom he has had five children - Marina, Seamus, Triona, Molly and the sadly departed Bernard James "Chuck" - Bernie McEntee is ingrained in the United States nowadays, where he has established his own in business, Maspeth-based Blackwater Tiling, over the past four years.
For a few years in the mid-1990s, he did miss home and much of the family are still in Monaghan - parents Seamus and Angela, brothers Sean, Noel and Declan and sister Doreen - but New York has been a significant part in the life of the McEntee clan. Bernie is one of five McEntee brothers in the Big Apple, with Gerry, Michael, Raymond and Nigel all domiciled in the city that never sleeps, while Noel, Declan and Doreen have also lived and worked there in the past.
When it comes to the GAA, though, Bernie is the one who is most renowned. Having represented Monaghan at minor, U21 and senior level, he was a key member of the last Harps side to reach the Monaghan senior final in 1991, when Castleblayney Faughs proved too strong back, and has been involved in the New York GAA scene virtually since touching down at Kennedy Airport in the summer of '94.
His travelling companion back then was Kieran Morgan, now sadly missed following his premature passing a few years ago. "It was just the two of us, myself and Kieran, who came out together," recalls Bernie. "The Morgan family have been great supporters of the Harps for years and Kieran was a very good friend of mine. He went home and ran a successful hotel in Belmullet but he died suddenly back in 2004. That was a big shock. Myself and him had great times out here back then. We were young men out in New York. It was party time for a month."
Bernie McEntee wasn't the only Irishman to travel to the US for that tournament - Jack Charlton, Ray Houghton, Giants Stadium and all that - and stay on indefinitely. "A lot of lads who became good friends of mine over the last 16 years all came out for the World Cup and never went home," he says. "A good friend of mine, Kevin Sharkey from Dungloe in Donegal, I first met him at the World Cup. He came out then and never went home either. When you come here it can be hard to leave."
When the dust settled on that summer of soccer, Bernie concentrated on the perfect triumvirate of work, family and football, not necessarily in that order. He played with the Monaghan club for seven years and has managed the junior and senior teams at various stages over the past ten. Nor has he been alone in serving the club with distinction: his wife Siobhan Gibbons has also played a key role, serving as secretary for three years in the late '90s and being named Clubperson of the Year for 1998. Bernie is eager to mention is wife's family - his father-in-law George Gibbons hails from Cong in Co Mayo "but we won't hold that against him," jokes Bernie, adding, "They're a wonderful family and they welcomed me like one of their own."
As a Monaghan man in New York, the Monaghan club was home from home for Bernie McEntee. "For years we were voted the best home-based club in New York," he points out. "Out of 24 senior players when I was playing, 23 of them were Monaghan lads. Hughie O'Sullivan was basically the real outsider living here and playing with Monaghan - he was a Cork U21 footballer who came out with Stephen O'Brien for a while in the mid-90s and ended up staying."
Apart from the Monaghan leaning to the home-based players, the club has attracted some of the best inter-county footballers in Ireland to New York down through the years. "We had a lot of great weekend players here," says Bernie. "Eamon Burns, who played with Derry for years at home. Enda Gormley was out one weekend, Ronan Rocks, Shane McFlynn, all from Derry. We had Cathal Short of Armagh, Ken Lalor of Dublin. Brian Lacey and Tadhg Fennin from Kildare were both on the team that I managed to win the Senior 'B' in 2003. And of course there were a lot of good Monaghan lads who came out too - Shane Duffy, Glen Murphy, Gary McQuaid, Raymond Ronaghan, Marley Tavey, Shane Tavey. John O'Connor from Clones, Mickey Slowey. A lot of great players. The lads behind the scenes have put in a lot of hard work too, the current committee Seamus Dooley, Bonnie Duffy, Shane McKenna, Gerry Coleman, Conor McKenna and Ross Connolly have played a big part."
Bernie McEntee has the rare distinction of winning New York Senior 'B' championships as both player and manager. In 1998, he captained the side to the title when Paul Curran, the current Monaghan County Board chairman at home, was the manager, and five years later he guided the club to the same title. At the end of that year he was honoured on the double, by the New York Monaghan club and the New York Monaghan Society alongside team captain, Truagh native Bernard Treanor.
Over the past decade, like many clubs in New York the Monaghan outfit have been hit by dwindling numbers, prompting the decision to revert to a junior club in recent years. The 2010 campaign saw plenty of encouragement for the future, however. "The club had a good year," says Bernie. "We got to the junior final where we were just beaten by Donegal. Dan Scott, who's from Harps, was team manager, with Eddie McPhillips, another Harps man, and Gary Murphy involved on the training and coaching end of things. Things are looking good for next year. There are a serious amount of young Monaghan lads out here at the minute. A lot of students are coming and not returning home, and lads who were here and went back home six or seven years ago want to come back again. The way things have tightened up at the airport it's going to be hard for them to get back in, but that's the way it's going. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot for them at home."
While it has taken up plenty of his time over the past 16 years, the Monaghan club is not the only New York GAA pursuit of which Bernie McEntee has been a part. He dusted off the playing gear once again in 2010 to represent the Bronx Bombers, an Over-40 side re-established by Truagh man and renowned Monaghan stalwart Tony McKenna, although injury kept him out of the last of a three-game series against the Rockland Rockies. "I played a couple of games but I couldn't play the third," he says. "I've a bad hip and I rang Tony and said I wouldn't even go to the game, because I'd probably end up playing and be in bits for six months. I'd been three, four years out of playing. I wouldn't say it was a shock to the system, I've always kept myself in middling good shape, but old age is catching up on me these days!"
From a coaching perspective, Bernie has also become involved in a new juvenile club in Queens, Shannon Gaels. "It's been going for the last seven or eight years," he says, "and I'm involved with the U6s now, my son Seamus plays with them. The club caters for every age group from U6 to U14, all American-born lads, who would be the sons of fellas who came out in the '80s and '90s. It's great to be a part of it - you might have 180 kids there some weekends."
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since the late '80s and early '90s, when Bernie was a fixture on the Monaghan minor and U21 teams and earned a few run-outs for the seniors between '91 and '93, during which time he was also voted Monaghan Harps Player of the Year. Seamus McEnaney, Monaghan manager for the past six years and now the new Meath boss, was a contemporary of Bernie's back then. "Myself and Banty were on county minor and U21s together, and I remember marking him a good few times against Corduff, so I know him fairly well," he says. "I've a lot of time for Banty. I've a lot of time for the whole McEnaney family, they're great football people. He'll be a big plus for Meath. I think he should have been given the Monaghan job for another year, I think there was still an Ulster there for him."
Banty's successor at the helm of the Monaghan team is Eamonn McEneaney, another man who meets with Bernie McEntee's approval. "Eamonn's a good man too and I think he'll do alright with Monaghan. The style of football nowadays in Ireland probably suits him well. When he was manager of the county team before there were a lot of very dogged teams, but now it's all fitness and physique. Eamonn will be into that side of things, so I think he'll do well.
"I met him one time out here. My mother and father were out for a visit and we all went up to Cape Cod. I saw this fella walking towards me and said to myself, 'That's Eamonn McEneaney'. He said to me, 'Bernie, I was thinking 'twas you', and we started chatting about football. His wife came up beside us then and said, 'Aw, Jesus, not over here too!' It was a classic - that memory will always stick with me."
Another meeting with Eamonn McEneaney sticks in Bernie McEntee's memory for all too different reasons. McEneaney was one of the established stars of a hot Faughs team which put Harps to the sword in the county final of '91. "I was wing half back on the team that day but 'Blayney bate the shite out of us," says Bernie with a smile that borders on a grimace. They had a fierce strong team that time - Nudie, Eamonn McEneaney, Loughman, Declan Flanagan, Noel Shields, Paul Campbell. They had seven or eight of the county team. We would have been a fairly young team, a lot of us were only 21 or 22, and 'Blayney had the experience. Nudie won a penalty from the throw-in, a goal straight away and that gave them a great start and we found it hard to get to grips with them after that."
If that was a disappointing day, Bernie had many good ones with the Harps. The club's senior Player of the Year in 1992, he has fond memories of playing alongside some of the most famous names in Harps' history. "I played with a lot of great players," he says. "The McAleer brothers, the Trappes, the Morgans, the Tibbys, Keith McGonnell, Shane McConnon, Marty McKenna and my good friend Declan Lavery. A lot of good memories." Tweet

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