How Castleknock is harvesting the urban sprawl

One of Dublin’s youngest — and already the country’s biggest — GAA clubs will be well represented at Croke Park on Sunday

URBAN isn’t the word that springs to my mind in Somerton. Mature trees surround the 23-acre home of Castleknock GAA Club which sits astride the verdant Liffey Valley while the Wicklow Mountains provide a stunning backdrop to every kick and puck in a ground that is tucked away down a quiet country lane.

The club’s city roots become more apparent in winter when the leaves fall and roofs of houses in nearby Carpenterstown peek through the exposed branches. Strain an ear and if the wind is right you may even hear some of the thousands of cars that pass over the nearby M50 overpass every day. This is a club perched on the tip of the spear that is the ever-expanding capital city as it swallows countryside in an incessant march towards the Meath border and the national games have had to adapt to keep pace with that breakneck urbanisation. Doing so has already yielded a rich harvest for the Dubs. Three of Castleknock’s minor hurlers featured for the county in the All-Ireland final defeat to Galway. Five will be part of Dessie Farrell’s football squad this Sunday against Tipperary. Ciaran Kilkenny features in both. When Farrell won his senior All-Ireland medal in 1995, Castleknock GAA Club didn’t even exist but St Brigid’s did. Already one of the behemoth clubs on the scene in Dublin, even they couldn’t cater for the changing demographics of the last 20 or so years.