The remarkable story of a small Tipperary school that can't stop producing Ireland internationals

Barry Ryan proudly reels off the names.

Six internationals in the last six years, including Aoibheann Clancy. She made her senior Ireland debut during her Leaving Cert year.

“That was phenomenal for the school,” says Ryan, a former League of Ireland player turned teacher at Presentation Secondary School in Thurles.

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“We had a big sign and billboard of Aoibheann at the front of the school for that period.

“We’ve had Sarah McKevitt, Edel O’Dwyer... Grace Flanagan is here at the moment, she’s in fifth year. She is the Cork City Under-19 captain and she is capped at 15s, 16s and 17s levels.

“We have Ciara Breslin, who was capped this year with the Irish Under-16s, she’s in third year, and we have Molly Kirwan, who was capped a few weeks ago with the Irish Under-15s.

“And then there’s Aoibheann, who was a senior international under Vera Pauw while she was in sixth year. She was unlucky not to go to the World Cup.”

Aoibheann Clancy (number 20) with Denise O’Sullivan, Harriet Scott and Chloe Mustaki after Clancy's debut against Morocco
(Image: ©INPHO/Juan Luis Recio)

It’s no coincidence that Pres Thurles is producing such a high volume of talent.

To understand this remarkable story, let’s first start with the architect of a football programme that is drawing eyes from all around the country.

“I got the opportunity to join Kilkenny City when Pat Scully was manager,” says Ryan, a right-winger during his playing days with Peake Villa and Clonmel Town.

“We won 10 games on the bounce and barely missed out on the play-offs at the end of the season.

“Pat went to Shamrock Rovers and Tommy Gaynor came in after that. Tommy had managed me at Peake Villa and he played for Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest.

“I played for a year with Pat, a year with Tommy and a year with Noel Byrne. Then a big shock to us all, Kilkenny City folded.

“At the time a few of us had been given notification that we were being kept on for the following season, so it was a big shock. Nobody knew it was coming”

Ryan still remembers how the news of Kilkenny’s demise in 2008 broke.

“I had a letter somewhere at home that I got from the club saying my services would be retained for the following season,” he says.

“Then I actually saw it on Aertel on RTÉ. Different times! And it was in the Star the following day. That’s how I found out.

“Work-wise for me, I was in AIB at the time, the most natural thing to do was to go back to Clonmel Town. I was really getting into coaching at that time as well.”

Ryan was 27 when he left the League of Ireland and felt it was time for a change of direction off the pitch, as well as on it.

Former Kilkenny City player Barry Ryan, now at Presentation School Thurles

He gave up banking, studied teaching as a mature student, qualified in 2014 and landed a job as PE teacher at Presentation Thurles.

He also served for a spell as assistant manager to Dave Rooney at Treaty United’s Women’s National League team.

It wasn’t long before things took off at the school, with the support of principal Trish O’Callaghan.

“We won an All-Ireland in only my second year. I was working with Edel Harding and we had Sarah McKevitt (now at Bohemians) on the team,” he says.

“We played against Pres Kilkenny, who had Ellen Molloy, and you are going, wow, these players are amazing.

“It just went from there. We started recruiting players and started building this idea of turning the school into the biggest soccer school in the country.

“After the All-Ireland, I got a call from the Munster Schools. That’s the pathway for girls, the first chance of international recognition is in the Irish Under-15s schools team.

“How you get onto that team is you play for your province. Leinster, Munster, Connacht and Ulster play the Interpros, a schools competition.

“I was offered the job of managing Munster, who hadn’t won an Interpro since 2010. But we won back-to-back titles and that led to where I am today, doing the UEFA B and pushing on.”

Meanwhile, word was getting out that something special was happening at Presentation Thurles.

McKevitt went to the 2015 European Under-17 Championships and, according to Ryan, “the whole school watched it.”

He adds: “It dawned on me that if you had two or three Sarah McKevitts, you could completely dominate in the girls’ game. And why couldn’t we have two or three Sarah McKevitts?”

Barry Ryan and Trish O’Callaghan, principal of Presentation School, Thurles

So, just as he did in his Munster role, he looked around for the best young prospects.

“When I went to school in Thurles CBS, it was a bastion of hurling. Every hurler in the county came to Thurles CBS.

“And if you wanted to play rugby for Munster, you went to Rockwell. So I thought, why couldn’t we have that as a soccer school? The opening was there.

“I started going around to primary (school) games. Then we would visit the schools and bring Sarah and other players with us, and we would talk to them about what it was like in Pres.

“We wanted to create a high performance environment, so we fundraised to get a full-sized astroturf pitch. We had a gym and a meeting room.

“We use the meeting room for opposition analysis. We have a projector, so we would even do a bit of video analysis if we had it.

“We started preparing like a League of Ireland team and all of a sudden people started talking and word got around. Girls were being drawn here.

“Suddenly, there are six Irish internationals coming from a small Thurles school of 550 girls.”

And each success story leads to a new one.

“We have a philosophy - each one teach one,” Ryan explains. “Sarah McKevitt set the standard. Aoibheann Clancy came here on the back of Sarah playing for Ireland.

“Then Ciara Breslin, she’s from Portlaoise, she came over here for the open day with her dad, because they had really high aspirations, they hoped Ciara could play for Ireland.

“It would mean a lot of travelling - an hour on the bus every day - so they were a bit undecided.

“But when they came over to have a look around, there was a girl out on the astroturf with a bag of footballs hitting free-kick after free-kick, practicing crosses, cones set up.

“As they got closer, Ciara turned to her dad and went, ‘Oh my God, that’s Aoibheann Clancy’.

“Before they even got up to the main building for the tour, they were done, they were signed up.

“So, Sarah set the example for Aoibheann, and Aoibheann set the example for Ciara, and Molly came on the back of Grace Flanagan.

“What they do with the younger players is great too. When they come back from an international camp, we’ll have a meeting and all the players will give them a standing ovation.

“There is a real togetherness and a real sense of celebrating each other’s achievements.”

Ireland underage coach Dave Connell, currently in Lithuania at the European Under-19 Championships, recently spoke of his desire to introduce a sports school system to Ireland.

Connell said: “When I did my Pro Licence we spent some time in Holland and there are sports schools there. In mainland Europe, football is part of the curriculum.

“I remember talking to the Norwegian manager ten years ago, asking him what he did, and he’d sit down with school teachers and discuss the basic programme for each individual player.”

Ryan, a former teammate of current Ireland Under-17 boss James Scott, is doing just that. But he would like to do it on an official basis, with FAI and government support, and with similar projects dotted all around the country.

“I had a conversation with James Scott and while back and we were wondering, how has nobody done this?” Ryan says.

“When I was in school, it was so normal. There were guys coming from everywhere to play hurling with Thurles CBS. They were literally just there to play hurling. The same with Rockwell for rugby.

“So, it’s incredible to think that there was no soccer school.”

Since Ryan arrived, Pres Thurles have won eight of the last 10 senior Munster finals, and have claimed senior All-Ireland titles in 2016, ‘18 and this year.

They have been All-Ireland champions at first year level, and have Munster titles at Under-15s and 17s.

“Every year,” he continues, “a new girl comes in who is going to play for Ireland. Grace Hogan this year has come from Tipperary town and she has played back-to-back for Munster and won two Interpros.

“She has played in the League of Ireland with Wexford. She is moving schools to come here in fifth year. So the cycle continues.

“There is another girl coming from Kilkenny that we are hopeful for, who could have a big future.

“It is becoming the thing, if you want to play for Ireland, this is the place to be. If you have the raw materials to play for Ireland, we push you to get there.

“It’s a high-performance environment inside the classroom and outside the classroom.”