St Peregrines
2008 sees the 30th anniversary of the foundation of St. Peregrines. The clubs covers the area in West Dublin that includes Huntstown, Hartstown and Blakestown. This club is one of the most progressive clubs in the county and has a state of the art 500 seater grandstand. They ran an excellent hurling symposium earlier this year that included hurling sessions with some of the best hurling men in the country. All their hurling coaches have completed the Foundation Level Course and 7 adults have completed the Level One course. They cater for all ages from Nursery to Intermediate Level and to date are unbeaten in this years Adult Hurling League Division 3. Both their coaching policy and Mission Statements are ones that most clubs would be proud of.
St Sylvester’s
The Malahide club here caters for children from Nursery to minor and u 21. Their top team is going well in Division 3 of the Adult Hurling League and in the Corn Ceitinn competition. They have 38 qualified coaches looking after their teams. Over the past 18 months they have had considerable success at underage level and this year their u 10s won the Mount Sion tournament in Waterford beating Ballygunner, Passage East and Mount Sion along the way. Like a lot of other clubs they are in the process of building a hurling wall and also developing an all-weather floodlit pitch. They are constantly looking at ways to improve their knowledge of training and coaching methods. They are also conducting workshops on sports nutrition, injury prevention and fitness improvement. They now say that children in Malahide are again hurling on the green and that they are even carrying their hurleys to the shops. (I wonder why !!!!)
Round Towers, Clondalkin
Round Towers must be one of the oldest clubs in Ireland as they were formed 1 month after the GAA itself was founded in 1884.They are fielding teams at all ages and through the great work of GPO Padraig Durkin they are working very closely with no less than 8 primary schools in the area. Similar to other clubs they intend to install a hurling wall that will no doubt help with the upskilling of the players. This year around 100 hurlers attended their summer camp that was visited by Kilkenny Captain Cha Fitzpatrick. Hurling has come into its’ own at Round Towers and with the minors winning the A championship a couple of years ago they are now competing well at u 21 and adult level.