Wanted by Chelsea and Brighton, the family roots of Ireland's new star manager
IN THE COMING WEEKS, Kieran McKenna is set to become one of the most famous Irishmen on the planet.
It’s not an exaggeration or hype. The Premier League is the most-watched sports league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories and with a global reach of 643 million homes, a potential audience of 4.7 billion people.
After winning promotion with Ipswich Town, dragging them up two leagues in just over two seasons, he has reportedly given Chelsea an indication he is interested in their vacant managerial position following the departure of Mauricio Pochettino.
After promotion to the Premier League.
If the move happens, he becomes a worldwide figure. But it’s coming anyway.
In understanding how far he has come, it’s fascinating to trace the story of the family back two generations, to a homestead high up in the forestry of Errigal Truagh parish, right on the Tyrone and Monaghan borders.
Depending on the day, it’s either spectacular or desolate. There’s no debate that it is entirely remote.
Such is the proliferation of McKennas in the region, that each different Clann carries a nickname. There’s ‘Oiny’ McKennas, ‘Ardle’ McKennas, ‘Harvey’ McKennas, and much more.
Kieran McKenna is one of the ‘Biddy’ McKennas. This is where his grandfather James comes from.
At some point in his youth, James McKenna struck out for a much different life and fetched up in London. With his wife Mary, they turned their savings into buying several houses on Burton Road, Kilburn, just round the corner from the famous National Ballroom.
They knocked the walls through and converted everything into a Bed and Breakfast for the Galtymore Generation.
Together, they had seven children. Some learned the value of hospitality. Others, such as Seamus picked their own path and he became headteacher of Finchley Catholic High School.
Liam owned a garage and, along with his brother Owen, a digger driver, they put together the capital to purchase the Manor House in Killadeas, Fermanagh, a 17th Century small eight-bedroom hotel that despite its’ Italianite design, had fallen behind its’ former glories in the late ‘80s.
Owen pursued other projects and Liam, together with his wife Mary of Middletown, Co Armagh – a distant relation of former SDLP politician Seamus Mallon – brought the Manor to four-star splendour on a magnificent location on the banks of Lough Erne.
They built a house in Coa, an area outside Enniskillen and had four children; James, Rosemary, Kieran and Robbie.
Today, James and Rosemary have succeeded their parents in the running of the hotel. It was a long process to get it to where it is now and the example set by his parents hasn’t been lost on Kieran.
“Seeing the work they’ve put in, the hours, the way they managed people, the passion they put into it, definitely influenced me,” he told The Observer in an interview last year, after Ipswich clinched promotion from League One.
“My Dad pretty much lived in the hotel in the way some might say I live at this football club. I’d see my grandad come over from London on his holidays and within a day he’d be up a scaffold painting the top of the hotel or fixing tiles on the roof. It was a life’s work from the whole family.”
It’s worth considering the backgrounds of his siblings; James was a feisty midfield player who spent ten years in midfield for Ballinamallard United FC in the Irish League, winning the club’s Player of the Year award in 2016 and captaining the side in his later years.
Rosemary came from a background in theatre, having graduated from Trinity College in Dublin with a degree in English and Drama and was nominated as Best Director for a production of Juan Mayorga’s ‘Way To Heaven’ in the Irish Times Theatre Awards.
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Robbie studies Sport and Exercise at the local South West College, and has spent some time in his placement over at Ipswich Town. He has played Gaelic football for various underage Fermanagh sides and his club, Coa O’Dwyers.
Growing up in a busy house, Kieran could easily find a quiet spot and a television set to sit down and watch a game.
“I was the eight-year-old sitting up watching a League Two game in the spare room while the rest of the family had the TV on elsewhere,” he told The Observer in that interview last year.
“I know so many children are passionate about the game but I was the one watching every single second of football, day and night.”
His sporting passions were two-fold. Football with Enniskillen Town United, and Gaelic football with Enniskillen Gaels.
There was nothing casual about it though. An underage coach at Enniskillen Town, Mark Connolly told a story to the BBC after Ipswich achieved promotion to the Championship.
“He was very methodical – a great character – a great team player – but he had that wee bit extra about him.
“When the other kids were having a wee bit of fun – Kieran was doing extra work – sit-ups at the side of the pitch, extra runs after games.”
“What set Kieran apart even at that young stage of his career was his sheer professionalism, the way he dedicated himself to it.”
At school, St Michael’s Enniskillen has always held Gaelic football as a priority. The current principal, Mark Henry was starting his teaching career when he coached a team in the Rannafast competition during McKenna’s last year at school before he made the move to Tottenham Hotspur at 16.
“Kieran was in every way, in sport and academically, how he went about his business, he was an outstanding young fella. If Kieran hadn’t have left St Michael’s at the end of Year 12, it’s highly like that he would have been St Michael’s Head Boy,” says Henry.
On the pitch, his maturity set him apart.
“Kieran, even at a very young age, genuinely was what you would call a cerebral footballer,” says Henry.
“Kieran was not blessed with pace but he more than compensated for it with his game intelligence. In football teams for St Michael’s, he was playing sweeper before we even knew what a sweeper was.
“He would have played centre-back, or else wing-forward because he could take a score. But he was brilliant at dropping back and understanding where he needed to be, intercepting balls and very good on the ball.
“This is something he did naturally. It wasn’t something he was instructed to do. He was a very clever Gaelic footballer.”
As it happens, there’s another young player at St Michael’s, Sean Corry, who is leaving the school this summer to take up a contract with Derby County. Over the last while, Henry has been sharing the example of McKenna to Corry.
“I told him about Kieran’s focus on his GCSE’s, the fact that Kieran protected himself against bad luck with injury by ensuring his GCSE’s before continuing his studies when he went to Tottenham,” he says.
In action for Spurs reserves.
A quick check this week clarified McKenna’s results; four A*s a five A grades.
When his playing prospects ended at 22 due to a chronic hip injury, he had a headstart for the rest of his life.
Professional football is a game of chance, of making your own luck and maximising opportunity. McKenna was already well thought of by Spurs legend Clive Allen, but when he attended Loughborough University to undertake their Sports Science course, Allen’s son was also a Fresher at the college.
Together, they took Loughborough’s team, in the eighth-tier of non-league. McKenna also paid his dues, coaching Nottingham Forest’s Under-9 teams, and going over to Vancouver Whitecaps, getting a 360-degree perspective of coaching, communication and the world.
His relationship with Allen cemented further, he returned to Tottenham to perform an analysis role before taking charge of the club’s Under-18 side.
From there he made the move to Manchester United, the side he supported as a child and in 2018 was promoted at the age of 31 by José Mourinho to assist the first team.
While some grumbled about his coaching style – ‘school-masterly’ being one less flattering remark circulated – few now would value the opinion of a Manchester United dressing room culture that continues to absolve itself of any blame for the current malaise.
In the meantime, Ipswich came in and took a chance on an unproven 35-year-old coach and appointed him in December 2021 when they were in relegation trouble in League One.
They won the first game, 1-0 against Wycombe Wanderers at Portman Road. Then a 4-0 win on the road against Gillingham.
Seven wins out of the first ten games with seven clean sheets. In February and March 2022, they went eleven games unbeaten and set a new club record, going 547 minutes without leaking a single goal.
The following year, they went up after putting together a 19-game unbeaten streak.
This season they won promotion to the Premier League, finding a strong finish when they needed to, unaffected by the pressure and the magnitude of their possible achievement.
Within that, the football has been breathtaking at times. No wonder he has attracted the attention of the very best clubs.
While McKenna has been showered with manager-of-the-month awards, he retains a scepticism towards individual glory or over-the-top worship.
He is married to Louise, a girlfriend from his Fermanagh boyhood and they have two children. He moved his family to Suffolk to better enjoy a domestic life, rather than live a solitary, hotel existence.
“I don’t have any interest in fame or external validation. My family, my close friends, my coaching staff, those are the important things and that won’t change,” he said.
Kieran McKenna with his wife Louise.
So where does Kieran McKenna, League Manager’s Association manager of the year, go from here?
Chelsea is the live concern. He might also be tempted to wait beyond the weekend to stick a wet finger in the air and see what way the breeze is blowing at Manchester United, who aren’t beyond firing freshly-crowned FA Cup winning managers.
Then, there’s interest from Brighton and Hove Albion. Ipswich will push hard to hold onto him. There is no lack of top-flight options.
McKenna’s ambitions are burned into him. They run through the genes, traced back through the generations to the homestead up among the thick forestry around Lough Mór.
To survive in a place like that, to get out of a place like that, requires wits, courage and ambition. Chelsea, Manchester United or Brighton all in the race for a Biddy McKenna.
You can’t buy that.