Lure of Cushendall still strong for Shane McNaughton in faraway New York

When it’s all over, when the final whistle sounds, in a corner of Manhattan where West 22nd Street meets Sixth Avenue, Shane McNaughton will tuck his phone away and gather his composure before assuming the identity of Willie Diver.

He will spend a considerable chunk of the afternoon pretending to be somebody else. This is who he is now. Hurling was who he was once. But Cushendall, he’ll always be Cushendall. Home never leaves you, especially when you leave it.

His dad Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton, his brother Christy, his best friend Neil McManus, his people, they will all be in Navan on Sunday afternoon as Ruairí Óg Cushendall face Kilkenny’s O’Loughlin Gaels in an All-Ireland club hurling semi-final. The men from the Glen forever raging against the odds as the world tells them they are storming up a hill towards a machine gun post, carrying only hunks of ash.

McNaughton recently turned 36 and in another version of this story the former Antrim player would be in Páirc Tailteann on Sunday still leading the charge up that embankment, but these days he’s swapped the pitch and the hurl for the stage and the pen.

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He’s currently immersed in rehearsals for Brian Friel’s Chekhovian play Aristocrats, which will run at The Irish Repertory Theatre off-Broadway from January 11th to March 3rd.

Rehearsals continue Sunday morning in New York, but he’s arranged to be at the theatre earlier than his work begins so he can find a quiet corner backstage to catch the game.

“I’ll be watching it on my phone in the theatre and then going straight out to rehearsals,” says McNaughton, smiling at the ridiculousness of it all. Not that it’s ridiculous, it just mightn’t make much sense to many of his contemporaries floating around the theatre.

“I’ll be well and truly on my own, there’s another lad from Tipperary involved but he’s more of a soccer guy,” says McNaughton. “I’ll be telling everybody about the game though, I’ll be showing them, but you show hurling to an American and the reaction is usually, ‘Holy f*ck, what are those guys at?’”

He wouldn’t be human if he hadn’t asked himself some similar questions in the years since he embarked on this life less ordinary. It would be convenient to portray it as a life brimming with after-show parties and movie premieres, but the reality is more one of grinding stones day-to-day trying to generate some magic from amidst all the dust. But in life, just like sport, hard work tends to pay off.

The Stage have called McNaughton “a star in the making” while Broadway World said of a live performance that his “quiet and charming intensity was mesmerizing”.

It’s all nice stuff to hear. But the grind continues. It has to. This three-month run off-Broadway is a significant milestone in his career, another notable rung up the ladder.

He has received several Best Actor nominations for various stage and screen performances, most recently he was shortlisted by The Richard Harris International Film Festival for his role in You, I Am – the short movie McNaughton himself wrote and which aired at the Foyle Film Festival last month.

He also obtained his green card last year and that has opened more working avenues for him in the US – including an appearance in the CBS show The Equalizer, alongside Queen Latifah.

His last real hurling game was the 2016 All-Ireland club final, which Cushendall lost to a Na Piarsaigh side which included Shane Dowling, Will O’Donoghue, Peter Casey and Mike Casey. McNaughton scored 0-4 that day but couldn’t hold back the tide.

“I don’t miss playing because I made my peace with it, I was happy with what I’d done in hurling,” explains McNaughton. “That All-Ireland final was my last proper game of hurling, aye.”

In the weeks after the defeat to Na Piarsaigh, McNaughton auditioned for the prestigious Stella Adler Studio of Acting. He didn’t expect to get accepted. But he did.

“It was a case of either then or never, so I just bit the bullet and went after that.”

Still, the soul of what makes hurling special will forever tug at the heartstrings. It was never really about the outcome, it’s always been about the journey, littered with wins and losses, love and friendships.

“The thing I miss and the thing you can’t really capture doing what I am doing now is the collectiveness of everybody together,” explains McNaughton.

“The collective nature of knowing on Sunday we’d all be going to play a game together, we loved that, f*cking loved it. You are doing it with the people you grew up with, your best friends, it doesn’t really matter what you achieve, you’ll be doing well to find that sort of togetherness elsewhere in life.

All those small things in life, things you take for granted in the moment, you remember them, they’re very special

“The cold Saturday mornings you’d be getting up for training, when you might be giving out at the time, those are the things I miss now, because you were all in it together, going out to do something hard alongside people you cared about and who cared about you.

“All those small things in life, things you take for granted in the moment, you remember them, they’re very special.”

McNaughton played in three All-Ireland club semi-finals, losing to Loughrea in 2007 and De La Salle in 2009 (after extra-time), before finally earning that magical moment in 2016 with victory over Sarsfields of Galway. It remains the club’s only All-Ireland semi-final triumph.

He was back in Ireland recently to attend the Foyle Film Festival for his movie You, I am – a story which is informed by his days working with young offenders in Hydebank Prison, Belfast.

McNaughton managed to take in the Ulster club hurling final in Newry when he was back. That evening, after Cushendall beat Slaughtneil, he took off for the airport and flew back Stateside – thankful to have been there to see his people on top of Ulster once again.

Cushendall are not immune from the challenges facing rural GAA clubs but hurling remains the heartbeat of the place.

Sambo takes a daily walk on a pathway along the coast where at night across the Irish Sea he can see the lights of cars moving along the roads of west Scotland.

Truth is, Shane would probably have made for the high seas many years earlier if it wasn’t for hurling.

“I watched The Natural one day, starring Robert Redford, we always kind of watched sports films in our house growing up, especially before games. But I must have watched that movie maybe 100 times, it ignited something in me.

“I had done a couple of little plays when I was younger too and was always kind of interested in it, but when you looked around you were in the middle of Cushendall and hurling took over.

“I applied to go to drama school in New York when I was 17 but our Antrim minor team was doing well at the time and the Antrim minor manager happened to be my da, so he kind of delayed my career over here by about 10 years!”

When Shane first landed in New York he played a small bit of hurling with the Ulster club but the fire in his belly had been extinguished by then. He was done. There isn’t a hurl stashed in his Manhattan apartment and the only time he pucks around these days is if he finds himself back in Cushendall down the pitch with Christy or Neil.

The parish lost one of its most beloved sons in July when John McKillop passed away. It has left a void in the area but Shane has set up his own production company and one of the projects they are currently planning for is a story on Wee John.

Shane also hopes to shoot a feature length version of You, I Know next year after the positive reception the short film has received on the screening circuit in recent weeks. He accepts he is a different version of himself to different people – some know him as a hurler, some know him as an actor, some as a writer.

“And to some people I’m an a**hole,” he laughs.

But for a few hours in New York on Sunday morning, he will simply be who he is – a son of Cushendall. Invested absolutely in the trajectory of a sliotar.

“To be playing in an All-Ireland semi-final, to have gone on a run through Ulster, that makes the winter a lot shorter for everybody,” he says.

“Especially when you are away from it you realise how important it is for the community, for the older people in the village it’s really important.

“In every part of Ireland the same is true, it makes their lives infinitely better. It just does. To be a part of something like that is special.”

Remembering his lines might not be his biggest challenge during rehearsals on Sunday.

“Whenever the game ends, I’ll look up and be surrounded by a pile of people who won’t have a clue how I’d spent the last few hours. I’ll be alone with my feelings,” he says. “You might be p***ed off, but you don’t have any choice but to brush it off.”

The All-Ireland final is scheduled for January 20th, just over a week after Aristocrats opens.

A crew from Cushendall – including his dad, his brother and Neil McManus – are flying out to New York in February to see the show.

“I was speaking to my brother this morning, he informed me both himself and Neil are going to be staying in my place, which is a shoebox in the middle of Manhattan, so I don’t know how that’s going to work out,” smiles Shane.

“They’re coming over to watch the play but my da would rather be watching a Division Five hurling game somewhere, anywhere, and I know that.

“And I know he’s only doing it because his son is in it. And it’s the same with Christy and Neil, they couldn’t care less about the play.”

Regardless, they’ll still come. Because they want to be there for him.

That’s what proper families and communities do; they rally around their people, support them. From the stands and terraces to the stalls and the balconies.

And that is why for a few hours on Sunday morning in New York, Shane McNaughton will find a quiet corner to play the part of supporter. Putting his hopes, his emotions, his trust totally in the hands of the Cushendall hurlers. It’s a role which has always come naturally to him.

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