ICA: Meath pitch and putt team’s fourth consecutive triumph

Meath ICA Federation has won the national ICA pitch and putt competition for four years in a row.

Margaret McTigue and Vera O’Rourke of Dunshaughlin Guild, along with Dunsany Guild’s Kathleen Geraghty, have been on the winning team on each of the previous occasions.

The fourth winning team member this year is Ann Nugent, also of Dunsany Guild.

Margaret, who has 55 years of unbroken ICA membership, jokes with her husband that pitch and putt is her first love.

“I tell him ‘you’re there or thereabouts’.”

A pitch and putt player for 25 years, she recalls friends encouraging her to start playing with the local club.

“I said I would when I was older. At that time I couldn’t be bothered getting that little ball into the hole. I used to play badminton and I felt pitch and putt took too long, whereas with a game of badminton you’d be done in an hour.”

The first time she teed off, she looked up to see if the ball was still on the green.

“It was still on the mat. I thought ‘how can I play this?’ But once I got a few gos I just got hooked. Vera and I are in the same club — we meet Kathleen and Ann at tournaments.”

A total of 10 ICA teams competed for the national title in Seapoint in mid-September.

“You just never know whether you’ll win. Dublin always try to beat us,” says Margaret, who, aged 17, joined Tara Guild, which her mother, Bridget Carty, had founded.

After Margaret married and moved in 1970, she and friend Kitty O’Dwyer still travelled to Tara Guild meetings four or five miles away in Skryne.

“Then we decided we’d start our own guild in Dunshaughlin. Seventy-five people turned up. We couldn’t believe it. It was 1975. I was first president. Today we have 24 members. We do crafts, demonstrations and charity work.”

Dunshaughlin ICA will do an 8km fundraising walk on Saturday, October 22 in aid of a hospice in Blanchardstown.

“We could have 30 or 40 walking. We’ve previously done it as a fundraiser for cancer and Huntingdon’s disease.”

The guild would love new members and meets on the first and third Wednesday of the month in the local St Patrick’s Hall from 8pm-10pm.