Bumper start to the year at Clanna Gael Fontenoy

The gathering before the exodus from the club to Croke Park to watch Dublin v Kerry

By Felix O’Regan

Clanns go to Croker

The New Year got off to a bumper start at the club – not on the playing pitch as is usually the case, but in the form of a mass exodus to Croke Park. The occasion was the meeting of arch rivals, Dublin and Kerry, in the first round of the National Football League. The fact that these teams had contested a closely-fought All-Ireland Football final just months beforehand made this all the more a mouth-watering prospect.  

So little wonder that, on an unusually mild Saturday evening for late January, some 400 young players and adult members gathered at the club for the trip to Croke Park: a record undertaking for the club and one that was efficiently organised by Michele O’Briain.

Before departure, and to a fanfare of music, the Chairman of the Juvenile section, Tony Murphy, introduced to the crowd a number of the players from just some of teams that had won silverware during the 2019 season: the U13 camogie team; the U16 football champions; and the senior ladies football team as County Champions. 

A large fleet of buses waited on Sean Moore Road to transport this enthusiastic body of Dubs supporters northside.  Quality football in an enthralling game which ended in a draw made the journey well worth while.  

Celtic Visitors

Neither the new year’s wind nor rain deterred our shinty-playing visitors from Edinburgh from joining our own hurlers in putting on a great exhibition of the mixed game. Those spectators who braved the elements to turn out in Sean Moore Park were well entertained and duly rewarded.  

Like hurling, shinty is an outdoors game played with sticks which are curved at the end (called camáns) and a small, hard ball, with goals and a crossbar at both ends of the playing pitch. Considered by some to be Scotland’s ‘national game’, it is believed to have originated in chaotic mass games between Scottish Highland clans at least as early as the 17th century.  

Club Awards 2019 

As is customary on the occasion of the club’s end-of-year Annual Christmas Dinner, a number of awards were presented for outstanding contribution to the club in the course of 2019.  

The Team of the Year award went to the senior ladies football team for their tremendous success in winning the Dublin Intermediate Ladies Football Championship and then going on as far as the Leinster Championship semi final.

The award for Club Person of the Year was shared by Club Secretary, Brian Delany and Club Treasurer, Suzanne Murray. And the Colm O’Briain Memorial Award went to Noah McLaren for his attitude, dedication to training and commitment to his team.