Eamonn Fennell (born 1984) is a

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

er who plays for the St Vincents club and, formerly, for northside club O'Tooles. He has played for the Dublin county team in the past.

Inter-county

Fennell was first brought onto the Dublin team in 2005, after winning Leinster with the Dublin U21s. Fennell was on Dublin's

2008 O'Byrne Cup The 2008 O'Byrne Cup was a Gaelic football competition played by the teams of Leinster GAA. The competition differs from the Leinster Senior Football Championship as it also features further education colleges and the winning team does not progre ...

winning team, which defeated

Longford Longford () is the county town of County Longford in Ireland. It had a population of 10,952 at the 2022 census. It is the biggest town in the county and about one third of the county's population lives there. Longford lies at the meeting of ...

in the final. He helped guide Dublin to promotion to Division One of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

. Fennell has won the

Leinster Senior Football Championship The Leinster Senior Football Championship, known simply as the Leinster Championship and shortened to Leinster SFC, is an annual inter-county Gaelic football competition organised by the Leinster GAA, Leinster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Asso ...

with

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

in 2008, 2009 and 2011. He came on as a substitute in Dublins All-Ireland victory over rivals Kerry at Croke Park in September 2011.

Transfer issue

Fennell was the subject of a controversial club transfer move from his club O'Tooles to northside rivals St Vincents. The transfer was rejected by his own club and then by the Dublin county board with Dublin's Cork born county chairman Gerry Harrington giving the deciding vote. The verdict is expected to be appealed. The reason given for the rejection was "''A player is considered to always owe allegiance and loyalty to the club he first legally participated with in club competition''." The transfer to St Vincents was finally agreed on 15 February 2011.

Imposter

After the 2011 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, a Dublin fan sneaked onto the pitch to celebrate. He put on Fennell's discarded tracksuit top after joining the substitutes' bench and was seen on live television and in photographs.

References

1984 births Living people Dublin inter-county Gaelic footballers O'Tooles Gaelic footballers St Vincents (Dublin) Gaelic footballers Winners of one All-Ireland medal (Gaelic football) 21st-century Irish sportsmen {{Dublin-gaelic-football-bio-stub