Brian McEniff is a former Gaelic football manager, administrator and player.
McEniff played as a wing-back for the St Joseph's combination of clubs from Bundoran and Ballyshannon. He won seven Donegal Senior Football Championships with them, and another one with Réalt na Mara when St Joseph's divided. He won two Ulster Senior Football Championships with the Donegal county team as player-manager in 1972 and 1974, and was awarded an All Star after the first of these, before being ousted. He returned to manage the county to a third Ulster SFC in 1983, then left again. He returned once more in 1989, leading the county to its fourth and fifth Ulster SFCs in 1990 and 1992, as well as the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship in the last of these. After becoming chairman of the County Board, McEniff was unable to find a manager so did the job himself for a final time, reaching the All-Ireland SFC semi-final in 2003.
McEniff managed his county during four successive decades, earning a reputation as the dean of Donegal football. In July 1992, Hogan Stand described McEniff as "one of the most successful football gurus in modern-day GAA history" and he has been likened to a footballing Godfather-type figure. Until 2011, he was directly involved in each of his county's Ulster Senior Football Championship and All-Ireland Senior Football Championship wins. That year, Jim McGuinness won the first of the post-McEniff Ulster SFCs. Declan Bonner, who won his first Ulster SFC as manager in 2018, also regards McEniff as a mentor. Both McGuinness and Bonner played under McEniff when McEniff was Donegal manager.
McEniff managed the Ulster provincial football team for many decades. He coached Ireland to victory over Australia in the 2001 International Rules Series, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Football Park in Adelaide in October that year.
Wikipedia
“From the age of eight or nine my mother had me washing dishes on a biscuit tin at the Holyrood.”
McEniff, the Sunday Tribune, 2004.
