“When you get a chance, you’ve to put the best foot forward. I think I did this year”- Sean MacMahon

By Paul Keane 

When it came to launching Dublin GAA's new alternate jersey for 2025 and 2026, Sean MacMahon was a solid choice to do the honours.

Few wore a Dublin jersey more times this year than the Raheny man who enjoyed a breakthrough campaign in that regard, lining out in 13 of Dublin's 15 National League and Championship games.

Prior to 2024, he'd started 15 games across three entire seasons of league and Championship activity between his Dublin senior debut against Roscommon in 2021 and the end of 2023.

Almost doubling his starting appearances stats for Dublin in a single season amounted to significant personal development for the wholehearted and powerful defender.

"You want to put the best foot forward and I think I got a few lucky breaks in terms of maybe lads that this year got injured and I capitalised on that," said MacMahon, reflecting on his fourth season in blue.

"And when you get a chance to impress you do have to put the best foot forward. Hopefully I've made some headway, I think I did this year.

"I think now it's a clean slate again though for next year. There is no complacency there in terms of expecting to start. I am a long way from being one of those players! So it's definitely a clean slate I feel and starting from scratch and trying to impress again."

MacMahon first played for the Dublin seniors in the O'Byrne Cup in 2018, a year after lining out for Dessie Farrell's U-21 team in the All-Ireland final defeat of Galway. He has been regarded as a tight-marking corner-back, or full-back, ever since but actually started out as a score poacher at the other end of the pitch.

"Would you believe I grew up playing full-forward with Raheny," he smiled. "But there was one game, I remember the day, my minor manager with Raheny, he saw the other team had some lump of a full-forward who was just a huge fella. He was causing murder, just throwing his weight around.

"Anyway, I was slightly bigger than people on my team at the time so the manager said, 'Sean, will you go back on him and just kind of keep him in check or whatever'. Anyway, I did a job on him. The next day, there was another big full-forward so I ended up cementing the full-back position. So I kind of fell into being a full-back."

MacMahon's Raheny club colleagues Brian Howard and Brian Fenton are typically ahead of him on the pitch for Dublin, somewhere around the middle third. Their presence in the Dublin camp made his own development that bit easier.

"I had that comfort blanket I guess you could call it going in at first in 2018," said MacMahon. "So I'm thinking, 'Right, if I've no-one to talk to I can at least talk to these two!'"

MacMahon has taken to it well, biding his time before nailing down a regular place, and was there in Dublin's lineup for last June's All-Ireland quarter-final against Galway. It all started so well that afternoon with Dublin 0-11 to 0-7 ahead at half-time before the game swung in Galway's favour, ending in a one-point win for the westerners.

A bug in the Dublin camp that week hardly helped but MacMahon was quick not to use it as an excuse for the rare quarter-final loss.

"In no way, shape or form was it a factor in why we performed so poorly in that game, particularly in the second-half," he said. "We were just beaten by a better team on the day and the wheels fell off the wagon. We just weren't consistent in our performance. The first-half was kind of standard enough, going alright, and then in the second-half it was just kind of a systems malfunction. I don't think a bug can do that to you unfortunately!"

Afterwards, MacMahon and a few of his Dublin colleagues took off for a few days in Spain.

"We kind of just didn't think about it at all, which was ideal," he said. "You'd think you would, four football lads going away together, but no, we just enjoyed the pool basically."

When MacMahon returned, the club was waiting for him and another Go-Ahead Dublin SFC campaign. It ended for Raheny with a final round group defeat to Castleknock, a game in which MacMahon suffered a concussion. It was the first time he'd experienced the injury and, for a period, he felt dazed and confused.

"Thankfully it's all fine now," assured MacMahon. "I didn't rush back. But I'm starting to do runs and stuff again and I'm feeling alright so yeah, I think I'm definitely on the mend."