Ryan McHugh (born 11 April 1994) is an Irish Gaelic footballer who plays for Cill Chartha and the Donegal county team.
A former county minor, McHugh propelled himself onto the national stage in 2014 with a 2–2 blitz of reigning All-Ireland champions Dublin in their live televised semi-final meeting at Croke Park.
[7] With his club Cill Chartha, McHugh won the 2012 Donegal Minor Football Championship as team captain.
He played in the team that lost to Cavan in the 2013 Ulster Under-21 Football Championship final, though had been troubled by a calf injury beforehand.
[14] Jim McGuinness drafted McHugh into his senior squad ahead of the 2013 season, with Donegal the defending All-Ireland champions.
[21] McHugh won his first Ulster Senior Football Championship title in 2014, scoring one point as Donegal defeated Monaghan in the final.
[22] McHugh propelled himself onto the national stage with a 2–2 blitz of All-Ireland SFC title holder Dublin in the 2014 semi-final meeting at Croke Park on 31 August.
[24] His brother Mark left him to the bus that morning, then sat by "and watched as [Ryan McHugh] became a household name in one afternoon".
[25] Donegal qualified for the 2014 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final but lost to Kerry by a single score, with Colm McFadden striking the goalpost to the left of goalkeeper Brian Kelly in the third minute of stoppage time.
[27] Under the management of McGuinness's Rory Gallagher, McHugh started the opening fixture of the 2015 National Football League at home to Derry.
[38][39][40] McHugh scored an important goal in the 2015 All-Ireland SFC qualifier defeat of Galway at Croke Park and started the next game against Mayo at the same venue.
[67] Under the management of Declan Bonner, McHugh started for Donegal in the opening fixture of the 2018 National Football League against Kerry in Killarney.
[76][77][78] On 26 September 2018, however, it was announced that McHugh had accepted medical advice and would be sidelined for the remainder of the year due to concussion.
[82][81] Concussion had also caused McHugh to spend six weeks on the sideline following a 2018 National Football League game (against Kildare[81] or Tyrone[79][80] depending on which report you read) earlier that year.
[84][85] This remarkable achievement was further contextualized when McHugh later revealed he had suffered a "a slight bleed" in his brain and two concussions in seven months during that season.
[103] He did not participate in the concluding game of the league campaign (away to Kerry) as he and other senior players (such as Michael Murphy, Hugh McFadden and Eoghan Bán Gallagher) were rested ahead of the 2020 Ulster SFC quarter-final against Tyrone the following Sunday.
[109][110][111][112] In the 2021 Ulster SFC, he started each of Donegal's three fixtures and scored four points against Down in the opening round but was held scoreless against Derry in the quarter-final and against Tyrone in the semi-final.
[113][114][115] McHugh started each of Donegal's fixtures of the 2022 National Football League, against Mayo, Kildare, Kerry, Tyrone, Monaghan, Dublin and Armagh.
[121][122] In the 2022 Ulster SFC, McHugh started each of Donegal's three fixtures but was held scoreless in two of them, the quarter-final against Armagh and the semi-final against Cavan.
[3] McHugh has been likened to a child of school-going age — "You'd think he had just stepped off a school bus", Benny Tierney, the GAA pundit, once said.
His former county manager Jim McGuinness has suggested: "Even when the big hits are going in, Ryan has the ability to summon that little shimmy that helps to take him past defenders and allows him to set up colleagues.
[130][131] A scout for the professional English league side Reading spotted him at the age of 16 and McHugh was invited to England for a trial.
[130] In 2016, Ryan appeared in a street Gaelic football film created by Peil Star with Kieran Hughes (Monaghan), Richie Donnelly (Tyrone) and Niall McKeever (Antrim).
[133] On Friday, 15 December 2023, McHugh married Bridget Molloy,[134] originally from Ardara, County Donegal,[135] with the ceremony taking place at Ardara Church, the reception being held at Jackson's Hotel in Ballybofey, and then the celebrations continuing the following day at the Blue Haven Hotel in Kilcar.
[137] Though they met in Sligo while attending college, McHugh and Molloy had been close to one another in County Donegal without noticing each other until that time.