Donegal legend Michael Murphy is to come out of retirement to play inter-county football again in 2025.
The Glenswilly giant, who captained the Tir Chonaill men to All-Ireland SFC glory in 2012, has been persuaded to return by manager Jim McGuinness.
Murphy stepped away from the inter-county scene in November 2022 but now, at the age of 35, is set to feature again for the reigning Ulster champions, even though he is almost seven months older than Dublin great James McCarthy, who announced his retirement from the inter-county scene earlier this week.
Murphy played for Donegal from 2007 to 2022, captaining them from 2010 until his retirement, and is regarded as the county’s greatest ever player.
Growing up, Murphy’s hero was Donegal forward Brendan Devenney. When Murphy revealed that on ‘The Sunday Game’, Devenney was delighted: “The fact that he has called me his hero is, probably, the most humbling thing that anyone has ever said to me”.
The St Eunan’s man later commented: Devenney later said: “Has anyone’s hero turned around and then been their hero? Because Michael would be mine. So it’s come full circle”.
Donegal football’s leading goalscorer and points scorer, Murphy won five Ulster titles and five All-Stars, and was named Young Footballer of the Year in 2009.
Having been a prominent member of the Football Review Committee, Murphy will now play under the new football rules, and can be expected to flourish.
His most famous goal, opening the scoring in that 2012 All-Ireland Final against Mayo, resulted from a long ball kicked into him by Karl Lacey, and his aerial ability and finishing power could pose serious problems to defences which cannot be packed any more.
Since his retirement Murphy has been a television pundit for RTE, BBC NI, and GAAGO.
He also runs a sports store in Letterkenny, which sponsors the Donegal football championship, and continues to manage ATU Donegal (formerly Letterkenny IT) in the Sigerson Cup, as he has done since 2018.
In an interview with Cahair O’Kane of the Irish News in April this year, Murphy had insisted that he would not come out of retirement, despite the best efforts of McGuinness since he returned to take the managerial job on again.
“I do speak to him all of the time and had him half-tortured there for a while,” the Donegal manager said last December, finally admitting defeat.
So how tortured was ‘half-tortured’, Murphy was asked.
“Ah we had numerous good oul chats.”
Were you ever close?
“Ahhh… naw.”
Even halfway there?
“There were odd days I’d position myself in a way to say ‘right, you’re back’ but all of a sudden, by the afternoon, knowing what’s required and what the new setup was going to have to give, I just couldn’t give the energy. I could probably be there and tick the box, but you need to colour in the box.”
Seeing him back in the green and gold will understandably delight Donegal’s supporters.
