The Cork connection: How one of Ireland's biggest GAA clubs grew from the £4k sale of a pitch and putt course
Former Kilkenny hurler Jackie Tyrrell gives instructions to Ballyboden St. Endas players during a drill at a 2014 coaching session. Picture: Barry Cregg
In a poem dedicated to his daughter Betty, Thomas Kettle, Irish Home Rule parliamentarian and World War 1 casualty penned the words “But for a dream, born in a herdsman’s shed”.
The same words fit well with the frugal early days of the largest GAA club in the country - Ballyboden St. Endas - whose history from 1969 to 2019, has just been published.
The author of the work is Gerry O’Sullivan from Kilbehenny, Co. Limerick and his brother Eamonn has sourced over 500 photos for the publication. Their first cousin, Mossie O’Sullivan, of Bride Rovers was a coach to the All-Ireland winning Cork Intermediate Camogie team in 2018.
The Cork input goes back to the foundation of the club in 1969 and its first chairman Ned Murphy from Liscarroll in north Cork. Ned taught for many years in Scoil Treasa NS, Donore Avenue just off the South Circular Road in Dublin. He played for the St Kevins Hurling Club but he lived in Rathfarnham where in the company of others, the idea of forming a GAA club in the fast-growing suburb was often mooted in the mid-1960s.
On January 12, 1966, Ned and others decided to test the water. At a public meeting that night, Rathfarnham St. Endas was born. Three days later, fate played its part.
An advertisement in the appeared announcing that a ‘Pitch and Putt Course, 18 Hole, Freehold site’ was for sale on the Firhouse Road on the edge of Rathfarnham.
Whether Ned Murphy or his lieutenant, local property man Stephen Riney, had advance knowledge of the sale is unknown but the fledgling club moved smartly and for the sum of £4,000 Rathfarnham St. Endas - a club with no teams, not even a set of jerseys - bought the site.
In addition to the land, the club was now the proud owner of “50 pitchers, 50 putters, a load of sand, a mower” and a “shed” which would serve as primitive dressing rooms and clubhouse for the next few years. Another founder, Martin Lennon from Coolboy in Wicklow recalls: “Often it was so cold at meetings in the shed we had to stand up”.
Ballyboden St. Endas was formed in 1969 from the merger of Ballyboden Wanderers (1910) and Rathfarnham St. Endas (1966). The latter’s possession of a playing pitch played a part in that marriage. From that humble start grew the club that now fields over 170 teams in hurling, football, camogie and ladies football.
Ned Murphy was one of a family of nine (six boys and three girls). His parents were also primary school teachers. Well-known Republican leader and Fianna Fáil Minister Seán Moylan was a close friend. Ned’s wife Eileen was also a teacher and they had four children – Conor, Noreen, Mary and Eileen.
There are a number of other Leeside connections in Ballyboden St. Endas. The club’s first President was Fr. Patrick Ryan OSA from Clonakilty. Another prominent Augustinian in the club was Fr. Tony Finn OSA who following his return to the Priory at Washington Street in Cork became an active Blackrock mentor.
The current Dublin senior football team coach is Brian O’Regan, and his father Mick hails from Castletownbere. His first cousin Alan O’Regan played football at all grades for Cork. Brian’s father-in-law Dan O’Sullivan is an ex-Nemo Rangers man and won a Munster minor football medal in 1971 to go with an All-Ireland Colleges title with Coláiste Críost Rí from the previous year.
Dan’s wife Nuala also from Cork city is a club Vice-President. Another Vice-President is Denis Kelleher from Tracton who hurled for his native place and Ballymartle. His son Brian captained the Dublin senior hurlers in the early 1990s.
The longest-serving chair of the club is John O’Neill from Eyeries. Sadly, John passed away last August. He was pre-deceased by his brother Paddy, another ‘Boden stalwart.
West Cork has made significant contributions to the strength of camogie in the club – Dónal Regan from Castletownbere, Richie Sweetnam from Bandon and Clonakilty’s Gerry White. Carrigaline man John Dineen was also a championship-winning coach in camogie and Ladies football.
John Joe O’Sullivan from beautiful Glengarriff was a football player and mentor and now stars in the club’s acclaimed drama productions.
Blackrock’s Danny Buckley played for ‘Boden in the 1990s and prior to that Willie O’Connell from Na Piarsaigh featured in the blue and white. Other Leesiders include Jim Cremin of Milford, Gerry Aherne from Mitchelstown, Declan Fitzpatrick of Freemount, Eddie O’Neill of Glanworth, Joe Roche of Bride Rovers and the late Pádraig Cullinane, a native of Timoleague.
The dream that was born in ‘the shed’ has become a reality. Since 1995 the club has won an All-Ireland Club football title; two All-Ireland Ladies football crowns; two Leinster football titles, six Leinster Ladies titles, one Leinster camogie honour and 31 Dublin senior championships across the four sports.
Although Ned Murphy didn’t live to see the modern incarnation of the club (he passed away in 1981), his name lives on. On June16, 1984, the club named its primary playing pitch on Firhouse Road site of the famous ‘shed’ – Páirc Uí Mhurchú - in his honour.
Liscarroll junior hurlers were present for the occasion. That evening, a portrait of Ned was unveiled in the clubhouse by his great friend and fellow Corkonian, Seán Ó Síocháin, former Árd Stiúrthóir of the GAA.
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