Juvenile Club of the Year Geraldines P. Moran GAA Club
The club is delighted to be honoured by the Friends of Dublin Hurling with the award of juvenile club of the year. It is fitting recognition for the great work that is currently ongoing in the club in developing and promoting hurling. While the club is normally associated with gaelic football, and hurling is relatively new, the club has a long association with hurling in Dublin. Our involvement today is in honour of all those previous generations that played the game and that kept hurling alive in south Dublin.
Our club is the second oldest (surviving) club in Dublin having been founded in 1886 as the Cabinteely Geraldines. In the 1890’s a split in the club saw a new club called the Dunleary Independents established and this catered for players born in the Dun Laoghaire area. Subsequently Patrick Moran founded a club called Dunleary Commercials in 1919, which catered more for players from the country that were living in Dublin. That club was renamed Patrick Morans (in 1921 following Patrick’s execution) and it was a strong hurling club from the 1920s right up to the early 1970s. In 1972, Parick Morans GAA club merged with the Foxrock Geraldines to become the club we have today but unfortunately it ceased hurling in 1973.
Patrick was a Roscommon native who, on coming to Dublin in 1911, became
- an active member of the GAA,
- a trade union representative who was involved in the 1913 Dublin Lock-out and
- a republican who fought in 1916.
In this latter role, he was central to events on 21st November 1920 which is now infamous in GAA history becoming known as Bloody Sunday. He was executed on 14th March 1921 for his involvement in the IRA wipe out of British intelligence officers in Dublin on the morning of Bloody Sunday. Interestingly on that day, he was in Croke Park to see Dunleary Commercials beat Eirns Hope in the replay of Dublin Intermediate Football Championship. That game preceeded the Dublin v Tipperary game during which British forces entered Croke Park and opened fire on players and spectators killing the Tipperary player Michael Hogan.Bloody Sunday 19
The club played an important role in Dublin hurling for fifty years and won an number of junior and intermediate leagues in that time. It shifted base to Blackrock in the early 1950s, when it became a solely hurling club and played most of its home games in the Phoenix Park. The club had a close association with the Mount Sion club in Waterford which was the powerhouse of Waterford hurling in its golden era from 1957 to 1963. Frank Power, whose brother Seamus was one of the greats of Waterford hurling at that time played with Patrick Morans and was able to procure a set of their old jerseys and this was how the Patrick Morans team got by. Andy Gibbons (Kilkenny native), who remains a stalwart of the Geraldines, was a central player for Patrick Morans in driving them to intermediate success in 1970. Andy went on to be a great help to Naomh Olaf when he coached hurling in the schools for them following his retirement in the 1990s.
Today we have a vibrant juvenile hurling section, all of which started in 2012 with the appointment of Darren Magee as club GDO. We have over 100 players aged from 8 tor 13 and a good sprinkling of parents who hurled who are leading in coaching and mentoring. We have 70 other childrern in our academy learing the skills of hurling. While starting hurling almost from scratch is a challenge especially as there is no tradition or adult teams to provide coaching, as a club we are proof positive that it can be done and great credit is due to the Dublin County Board for its support in achieving this end. 2020 will be the first year the club will participate in Féile na nGael and the award from FODH will help drive participation levels in the game in Dublin.
