Armagh’s Pearse Óg Gaelic Football Club is this year celebrating their 75 year anniversary – with a host of cultural and specially curated reunion events planned to mark the occasion.
Since its formation in 1950 the club has grown from strength to strength, growing from a single site at Drumarg – near to where Armagh’s Athletic Grounds are now based – to two sites encompassing their social club off the Dalton Road and training and changing facilities at Ballycrummy Road.
It all started in 1950 with a meeting in Dougan’s Loft, Navan Street between Charlie McQuade, Felix McStravick, Sam Johnson, Gene McStravick, Eugene McKenna, Gerry Cush, Sean O’Neill of Red Ned’s pub fame and the legendary Ulster footballer ‘Big Jim McCullagh’ – who became the Pearse Ógs’ inaugural chairman.
The eight all came together to “give people an opportunity to get a regular game of football” in an expansion of the popular ‘Street Leagues’ of the time.
Speaking to Armagh I about the club’s formation and early history, committee member and former player, Tommy Martin said: “The Pearse Ógs got involved with the Armagh streets leagues and the historical background was that they were based in Drumarg and the Gaelic field then was a pitch that all the kids from around that end of the town played in.”
And, they were off to a great start. In just two short years, the Ógs had secured their first title at The Senior Championship in 1952 and their first County Minor Championship in 1959 – captained by Frank Mallon, Pearse Óg’s current Club President alongside future Pearse Og players Dermot Kelly, Joe Harney, Henry Donnelly and future All Ireland referee Hugh Duggan.
1985 Armagh Senior Champions
Said Tommy: “You had players like Eugene McKenna – who was the captain – and I remember talking to him in later years and he always had a smile on his face talking about back then. He went on to become a club president at one time.”
The win set the club on the map and, not before long, their successes began to snowball.
In 1967, the team lifted their next honour winning the Armagh Intermediate Football Championship after seeing off Silverbridge in the final.
It took some 20 years for the club to see the definite need for physical expansion, but eventually a group of members were able to source a sizeable, prefabricated hut from a hockey club in Belfast which they visited, dissembled and relocated to Armagh for the establishment of a social club at their Drumarg pitch.
It was around this time that Tommy himself, joined the Ógs as a juvenile player. He remembers the establishment of the social club in the early 1970s and speaks of this time – whilst politically turbulent – with fondness.
He said: “When things started to get a bit scary, the Ógs built a like a prefab hut as a bit of a youth club and I remember going into it and – to be honest – it was a bit of a shelter as young kids because there was rioting and shooting and then internment in 1971 and it became a real hub and place of refuge for the youth in the area.
“We played table tennis and had a tv, which was a brilliant thing, and I remember watching Wimbledon in 1971 there too!”
1975 u14 team in the old Drumarg Clubhouse
Tommy explained that back in the 1950s through to the 1970s the Streets Leagues allowed the youth to play Gaelic football from a younger age. Pearse Óg’s “reaped the benefits” of a new system that was now introducing younger boys into the sport from age 11 through to 15.
He describes the 1970s as the period where the Ógs really “came good”. They secured their second Armagh Intermediate Football Championship win against Whitecross in 1973 and, together with a wider age range of players and the income from the Social Club, the Ógs were able to develop a more modern playing facility which was up to county standard in 1984 as their ceannáras [headquarters] – the GAA’s Centenary Year.
It was an incredible time to complete their latest expansion with Tommy recalling the Dublin versus Armagh game that saw Dublin fans descend on the city in their droves with “great fanfare and parades all through the town.”
The energy carried over into the following year when the club lifted their first Armagh Senior Football Championship defeating local rivals Armagh Harps in the 1985 final with prominent members of the time including future All-Star Gerard Houlahan and county teammates Colin Harney, Brian Hughes, Paul Grimley, team captain Sean Gordon and Tommy, himself, among others.
1985 Armagh Senior Champions
However, a major fire at the site in 1996 meant the Ógs had to go again; this time rebuilding their social club at a new location – where it still stands today – just off the Dalton Road adjacent to the Athletic Grounds.
Just four years after the new ceannáras complex’s development, Tommy, Gerry Davidson and Michael Cullen entered into discussion with the former Armagh City Council for the development of a new training and changing facility.
They successfully negotiated the taking of lands on the Ballycrummy Road where they developed Pearse Óg Park which officially opened in 2005.
Here, Tommy says club members enjoy a range of youth activities, senior training and matches, presentations and social activities. The space is today seeing the benefit of fresh plans which have already seen one new stand now completed with a second to be added in the near future alongside construction of a sports hall adjacent to the new Carrickhill Industrial Park.
Today, the club is flourishing, with Tommy explaining that there could be at least 50 adults playing senior reserve and senior football with the minor panel boasting approximately 30 players and likewise in juvenile and U14s, the same in under 12s and about 50 to 60 children from U6 to U10 – and – he said that can be “doubled again” with the girls’ teams.
To commemorate their 75 years of achievements Pearse Óg GFC are now planning a series of celebratory reunions and events including a get together of the 1985 Senior Championship winners and the 2000 Ulster Minor Champions.
1967 team 40th reunion
They will also host a 75th gala dinner at Armagh City Hotel on November 8 and a 75th Monster Bingo in recognition of the important role that bingo has played in the club over the years.
Said Tommy: “Bingo – you might ask why are we doing that? That’s what helped finance our club over the years.
“There was men like Patsy Duffy and Joe Duffy – who was synonymous for years in the Gaelic field – and Tommy Powell etc and those men every Friday night held bingo and that’s how finance came in to help us expand.”
The events are due to begin in the month of September and carry on through to December. Updates will be provided on Pearse Óg Armagh GFC’s Facebook page here.
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