Athy G.A.A. Club

Michael Cusack, a Clare man, and proprietor of an academy at Gardiner’s Place Dublin, wrote to several prominent Irish men in 1884 inviting them to a meeting in Hayes’s Hotel Thurles to consider setting up an organisation for the development of Irish athletics and what he described as native sports. The purpose of the meeting was to take control of Irish athletics from the hands of people who did not support the cultural importance of Irish sport. In this he sought and received the support of Maurice Davin, a retired athlete who had achieved international recognition as a hammer thrower having won many Irish and English championships. Cusack’s original plans related to athletics and hurling, and it was Davin who brought football into the frame. At the meeting in Hayes’s Hotel on 1st November 1884 the Gaelic Athletic Association was founded and Maurice Davin who compiled the first Gaelic football rules was elected as its first president. In the intervening 136 years the Gaelic Athletic Association has made enormous contributions to the sporting, social and cultural life of Ireland. This was achieved not just by the accomplishments of club and county footballers and hurlers, but also by the many volunteers who have worked tirelessly for GAA clubs throughout the country. Athy’s GAA club, renamed ‘Geraldine Hurling and Gaelic Football Club’ at the Club’s AGM on 16th December 1945, has benefitted hugely from the spirit of volunteerism which has been the backbone of the club since its foundation in 1887. In the early years the men and youth of Athy gave of their time and experience to furthering the aims of Cusack and Davin in relation to the native games of Gaelic football and hurling. In more recent years the women folk have joined the men in running a successful club which provides the club’s young and not so young footballers with the facilities so necessary in the modern game. Regrettably, the hurlers have not enjoyed the same level of assistance and now operate as a separate club, even though the 1945 club name has not been changed in the meantime. Among the many hundreds of volunteers of the past were two men whose contribution I want to highlight in this article. Neither were from Athy or even Kildare county. One man was from Bailieborough, Co. Cavan, the other from Tullamore near Listowel in Co. Kerry. Both men served the Athy club as players, committee members and club secretaries. The Kerry man, on his own admission, played an ordinary game of football but his forte was in the administrative side of the club’s affairs. The late Tim O’Sullivan who came to Athy from Kerry in 1937 to work as a chemist’s assistant with J.J. Collins of Duke Street, togged out with Athy’s junior team for several years and was a sub on the senior team when it played the first round of the 1942 championship. Tim later served as a committee member from 1945 and in 1953 was appointed club secretary, a position he held for the following four years. He was appointed to the Geraldine Grounds Committee in or about 1951 and served as chairman of that committee from 1961-1963. He was later elected as president of Athy Gaelic Football Club, having attended every club A.G.M. since 1938. His was a unique record of service to the club which continued until his death in October 2004. The Bailieborough man was the late Barney Dunne who came to Athy in 1931 to work in Mrs. O’Mara’s pub in Leinster Street. He togged out with the legendary Paul Matthews, the Ardee man who himself came to Athy in 1925. Barney was a member of the first Athy club team to win a senior championship title in 1933. This victory was repeated the following year to give Barney his second senior medal, while a third medal was won by Barney and his Athy teammates in 1937. A fourth championship medal was won in 1942 by Barney who played for the Kildare county senior team, winning a Leinster championship medal in 1935. He was a sub on the Kildare team which lost the All Ireland final of that year. Barney retired from playing football in 1945 and was later elected to the club committee and served for a short period as the club’s joint secretary. He holds with Paul Matthews the unique record of winning four senior county championship medals as a member of an Athy team. Barney passed away some years ago. The players and volunteers of Athy’s Gaelic Football Club are an important part of the town’s social fabric as are the other men and women associated with the rugby club, the soccer clubs and the many non-sporting organisations in the town.