The boy who started at Under-8s with the Lions has just been voted the best young player in the Men's Division One, and he never left home to do it.
Darragh Horkan has been named Young Player of the Year in the Domino's Men's Division One for 2025-26. Division One is a senior men's league, so being voted its best young player is serious recognition. What makes it ours is the route: Horkan came up entirely through Limerick Lions, starting at Under-8s, and he is still here.
He plays for the club's Under-20 team, so this is not a graduate sending back a postcard. It is a current member winning a senior-league award while still wearing the jersey he grew up in. The development and the reward both sit inside the same club.
That matters to the next group coming through. The eight and nine-year-olds in the hall this week now have a name to point at, a face from their own club who did exactly what the coaches keep telling them is possible. Stay local, do the work, and the senior game is reachable from here. Horkan is the example, not a slogan on a wall.
The story is not finished either. He is pushing for selection on the Ireland Under-20 team heading to this summer's European Championships, the next rung on a ladder he has been climbing inside the same club for years. It is national recognition, and a credit to himself, his family, his coaches and his teammates.
Not a graduate sending back a postcard. A current member winning a senior-league award in the jersey he grew up in.
Limerick Lions