Should this turn out to be a farewell tour, Shane O’Donnell hopes to go out on his own terms. On the field and hurling.
The good news is that the 2024 Hurler of the Year intends to play for Clare next season. However, O’Donnell’s plan is to then pack his bags and head for Australia.
At 31, the three-time All Star has carved out a quite incredible sporting career, but life and interests outside of hurling have always been nudging at him.
Truth be told, the possibility of retirement is something he has been considering for quite some time now. An itch to work abroad, suffering a concussion and undergoing shoulder surgery just some of the factors that could have fast-tracked his hurling exit in recent years.
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But ultimately he stuck around and Brian Lohan can count on the Éire Óg man to report for duty next season as well, provided O’Donnell can get his body right for another intercounty campaign.
“The intention is for me to go again, basically,” he said at the launch of the AIB Club Championships.
“I’ve managed to accumulate a lot of injuries this year. If I can clear those injuries in the off-season and put myself in a position to be physically in a place where I can survive the entire year, then my intention is to go again if Brian still wants me. That’s where I’m at with it.”
He is currently trying to get on top of nagging shoulder, knee and groin issues.
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O’Donnell has spoken openly in the past about the concussion he suffered in 2021 and how it almost ended his career. But more recently it was shoulder surgery which he underwent last winter that might have brought the curtain down on his hurling days.
“That maybe prompted me having a stark conversation about where that puts me for the year,” he recalled. “So it definitely was on the cards to potentially not end up playing this year, but obviously I’m very glad that I did.”
In another version of the story, the 2025 campaign would have marked the end of his Clare career. But after such an unsatisfactory campaign, walking away now doesn’t feel like the proper way to bow out.
“Yeah, definitely this year was the intention to wrap up and I think there was a number of us in the boat that we had explicitly said to each other that this year was going to be the last year,” said O’Donnell.
“I think when it came to that abstract concept of retirement turning into a very concrete actual retirement, it became hard, especially given the year that we had.
“I think then my personal circumstances, with the timeline that we’d expected to move abroad, has just pushed a little bit to the maybe latter end of next year. So, it kind of just means that I’m in a position that I will be around for the summer basically.
“So, it’s kind of a combination of things, but there definitely is that point of actually making that step after having such a tough year and spending very little time on the pitch with Clare.
“It’s just very hard to make that kind of jump and I feel like I can still offer something for the last year that I’m around.”
The original plan was to work in the US for a period but the lure has waned in recent times.
“That would have been the most sensible from a career perspective for both myself and my girlfriend, but I think just the situation in America at the moment has probably taken the veneer off that a small bit.
“But the other side of it is just to be able to move abroad and to experience that kind of lifestyle, so Australia is definitely something that we’d be really interested in. So yeah, that’s the idea, this time next year roughly is when we’d be looking to go.”
O’Donnell admits he found it difficult to be a spectator for much of 2025. Recovery from the shoulder surgery forced him to miss the entire National League and Clare’s first two outings in the Munster Championship. He came off the bench against Tipperary and started against Limerick, but that was the extent of his playing season with the Banner.
“Missing time on the pitch and having to watch games is really challenging and that’s why when I do retire I’m looking to move abroad at the same time to have that physical disconnect of being able to say, ‘Well, I’m not actually able to get on the pitch’.
“It was a difficult year on a number of fronts but obviously it does whet the appetite for next year.”
His difficult year has, however, produced a glorious ending. At the start of October, O’Donnell helped Éire Óg win a first Clare senior hurling title in 35 years. The following week the club’s footballers made it a senior double.
Eight players played in the two finals, with over a dozen in total involved in both panels. O’Donnell played football until his concussion.
“The year after I retired [from football] they won their first football [title] and they’ve won four since, so I think everybody is kind of happy I stood away because they have had unprecedented success since,” he smiles.
In Munster, Éire Óg’s hurlers will next month play the winners of Sunday’s Tipperary final between Loughmore-Castleiney and Nenagh Éire Óg.
“It really is bonus territory,” O’Donnell added. “Munster has never been something on my radar anyway because it’s just always been getting through that county final.”
They are out the other side of that final now and a new adventure awaits the Ennis outfit.
Still, at the outset of this provincial club championship campaign, there is a sense of an ending in sight for Shane O’Donnell. A new adventure awaits for him too. Catch him while you still can.
