Senan Kilbride was finished with all of this. It had been a good innings, but life moved on and so too did St Brigid’s. And then, almost out of nowhere, he was wrapped up in green and red again.
The 40-years-old lined out in Sunday’s Connacht senior club football final against Galway’s Moycullen at Dr Hyde Park in what was only his third senior championship start since 2020.
The former county footballer moved to Abu Dhabi that year. After recently returning home to Ireland, he initially laced up his boots to play masters football with Roscommon and to kick some ball with the St Brigid’s junior team.
But senior boss Anthony Cunningham soon recognised that Kilbride still had something to offer at the top level and invited him to join his squad. Kilbride came on as a sub in the drawn county final in October but started the replay and has been in the starting 15 ever since.
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At the beginning of the year he was a former St Brigid’s player in Abu Dhabi, by the end of he’s back as the club’s full-forward in a Connacht final victory.
“I came back with no expectations at all,” says Kilbride. “I moved back to Ireland to try and get settled down. It has been a rollercoaster, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.
“Someone was asking me there, ‘Where would you rather be?’ And the answer is you would not want to be anywhere else in the world.”
St Brigid’s have now won six provincial senior football titles in their history. Kilbride was involved in five of those having missed their 2023 success.
He was also a key player when the club beat Ballymun to claim the All-Ireland title in 2013, two years after they lost the 2011 decider to Crossmaglen.
And there are similarities in what St Brigid’s are trying to achieve this season, having lost the All-Ireland final to Glen in 2024.
“We lost the final in 2011 to Crossmaglen, then we lost the semi-final the year after to Crossmaglen. That hurt does drive you on, it does give you impetus and then sometimes you just need a break the following year,” he says.
“You don’t always get what you deserve. You don’t always get that breaking ball. Or you don’t always win it after losing it. The boys have put in a massive shift all year. I am just delighted we came out the right side of (the Connacht final). We are absolutely blessed.
“The boys defended so well, they put in massive blocks, even fingertip blocks. There was just a huge effort.”
St Brigid’s will meet the eventual Ulster champions in an All-Ireland semi-final at the start of January.
Senan Kilbride thought he was finished with all of this. Unfinished, it turns out.
