Time was, an intercounty player could slope off for a season or two and there’d barely be so much as a dickie bird peep about it. Frank McGuigan was 22 years old when went on the All Stars tour to New York in 1977 as a replacement.

When the time came to get the flight home, he decided to let it fly off without him and didn’t come back to Tyrone for a full five years. Rory O’Carroll has a while to go to match that sort of sojourn.

Still, it’s by no means unheard of in the modern game.

It’s an unfortunate coincidence that the precise time of your life when your body is in the best shape for being an intercounty footballer or hurler is also when your mind is ripe for the expansion that a switch in cultures and surroundings provides. Every year, you find a handful of players across the country deciding to make it now rather than never.

O’Carroll is the most high profile this time around but it’s not unusual for All-Ireland winners to do it. Just like the Dublin full back, Colm Cooper was 26 and coming off the back of three Celtic Crosses in a short period of time when he wintered in America for the first four months of 2008.

Clare’s Colm Galvin opted out for the early part of last year before returning halfway through the summer. That said, it’s more common the further down the pecking order you go.

Career break

Emlyn Mulligan took last year out of the Leitrim set-up and set off for Asia. China, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bali, all that jazz. He finished off in Boston for six months, played ball through the summer before heading back home. It was the best year he ever put in.

“I had an opportunity in work to take a career break and that doesn’t come around too often working for the Garda so it suited that way. And we were the right age, with no mortgage and no kids so it just fell into place. And when it came to football, that year had gone so bad for us that I was just fed up with it. I was disillusioned with what we were getting out of it compared to what we were putting into it. It was an easy decision to make really.

“We were lucky in that we didn’t have to move for work, we weren’t forced out of the country or anything. We were happy just to go because travelling was something we were interested in. You would tell any young person they should do it because that time comes and goes very quickly. The life experience is massive to have. Football will be there when you come back.”

Mulligan is no All-Ireland winner and never will be. But he’s still Leitrim’s best player and there is a pressure in being the biggest fish in such a small pond. He was leaving his county without their main source of scores and new manager without his captain. Not ideal but for Mulligan, it was time.

Going back

“It kind of worked out alright because Sean Hagan was after stepping down as manager and Shane Ward was just coming in. I had told Sean that I was doing this and so Shane knew it before he came in. It was easier then because he knew from the start and didn’t try and convince me to stay or anything. There were very few people telling me I should do this or do that. It wouldn’t have been a factor in my decision anyway. There was no going back on it.

“I was just well ready to get away from it. It might be different if you’re winning All-Irelands or challenging late into the summer. That might make you think twice about it. But even for those boys, intercounty football is a bubble. You become involved in a very tight circle and it’s all you know.

“Your whole focus is on what you have to do and where you have to be and all that stuff. You only come into contact with a small group of people and i. You get a totally different perspective on things.”

There’s a lot to be said for cleansing the palate like Mulligan did. Intercounty GAA is pure gravity nowadays, a pull that can’t be argued with. Only by getting out beyond its atmosphere can you escape it.

“Life is there to be enjoyed,” says Mulligan. “You can give up your whole 20s for football and go from when you’re 18 until your early 30s but that’s an important time in your life too and you don’t get it back. I’m glad I did it. Those years are there to be lived and obviously football is a good focal point to have during that time but you don’t want to get too trapped in that bubble either. I was able to play a bit of football in Boston during the year so at least I wasn’t away from the game itself for too long.

“Even so, you’d be somewhere like China and it would be the last thing on your mind. I would have checked the scores to see how Leitrim were doing but the honest truth of it is I didn’t miss it one bit. It wasn’t like I was sitting down going, ‘I wish I was back playing at home’. That thought didn’t enter my head even once. That’s what I mean about a different perspective. When you’re outside the bubble, you can completely forget about it. You find you have other things to worry about and that there’s a bigger world out there to occupy your mind.”

Seven points

Mulligan got back on the horse last Sunday, scoring seven points for Leitrim in their FBD League win over GMIT. It was a grand outing and his radar was working well enough – five of the seven points were from play. The year will bring what it will bring and the benefits of having taken off last year will reveal themselves as he goes.

“It was nice to get back out, shake off the cobwebs. When you put on a Leitrim jersey, you’d be proud enough and even if it’s just an FBD League game, it still does mean something. There’s a total change in the whole Leitrim set-up from what had been there before. Shane is very professional is what he does and we’ve got a few young lads coming through as well and a few players back who weren’t there last year. It’s good to be back.”