What's the Story - GAA Club names

tayto lover

zetecescort wrote: »

whats the history behind the Sarsfields name? one in a lot of counties (Glanmire, Lucan, Newbridge, Thurles to name a few)

Probably called after Patrick Sarsfield -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Sarsfield,_1st_Earl_of_Lucan

rpurfield

CrabRevolution wrote: »

True, we arent fond of "names" in Meath, and even in those instances you named, they are all amalgamations or a number of parishes put together. Clann na nGael, Blackhall Gaels are another 2, but again are amalgamations of former clubs.

Drumbaragh seem to be officially called Drumbaragh Emmets, but you only occasionaly see that. Then there's Navan O'Mahonys and Simonstown Gaels . Aside from those 3 though, ever other club is just a location or a saint.

Yep, personally I was a bit disappointed Duleek/Bellewstown didn't come up with something a bit more exciting than sticking a slash in between the names when they merged a few years ago now.

I know this is an old thread but if a team has an unusual name because it's named after their village/town its not that unusual. It's the likes of Tulsk Lord Edwards and Starlights in Dublin I'd be more interested in finding out the origins of

BonnieSituation

CD-R 80 wrote: »

Thats my club

The Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Mourne Road Drimnagh,opened 9th April 1943 and situated just three miles fromO Connell bridge.

Club were founded in 1954 I think and used the Parish name.

Hon' the Counsel

My auld club. Le sigh.

krazyklown

From Mayo
Eastern Gaels - club based near Ballyhaunis
Castlebar Mitchells
Kilmovee Shamrocks
Charlestown Sarsfields
Ballina Stephenites
Bohola Moy Davitts
Moytura Hurling club in Cong

Ballyvary Blue Bombers is the catchy name of a soccer club in Ballyvary

Four Roads in Roscommon

Kkboy

Blacks and Whites in Kilkenny

Fr Tod Umptious

krazyklown wrote: »

From Mayo
Eastern Gaels - club based near Ballyhaunis
Castlebar Mitchells
Kilmovee Shamrocks
Charlestown Sarsfields
Ballina Stephenites
Bohola Moy Davitts
Moytura Hurling club in Cong

Ballyvary Blue Bombers is the catchy name of a soccer club in Ballyvary

Four Roads in Roscommon

By the waythe full name for another Mayo club Crosmilona, is Crosmilona Deel Rovers

BonnieSituation

krazyklown wrote: »

From Mayo
Eastern Gaels - club based near Ballyhaunis
Castlebar Mitchells
Kilmovee Shamrocks
Charlestown Sarsfields
Ballina Stephenites
Bohola Moy Davitts
Moytura Hurling club in Cong

Ballyvary Blue Bombers is the catchy name of a soccer club in Ballyvary

Four Roads in Roscommon

Good friend of mine is from Ballyvary and the name has always cracked me up and then I discovered the CFL and the Winnipeg Bluebombers, there has to be a strange connection somewhere.

Radio5

I presume Boherlan-Dualla in Tipp is called after 2 villages or parishes? It's one of my favourites along with Lattin-Cullen.


In Kerry there is Dr. Crowes and in Dublin they have Kilmacud Crowes. At least that is how they should be pronounced if you listen to 95% of the media.

ollaetta

Most clubs in Clare have their location in their names. Only two with half exotic names I can think of are Kilmurry Ibrickane and St. Josephs Doora Barefield but again they include their parishes.

We might be able to claim the shortest name though with the Moy GAA club.

zetecescort

there's a Moy in one of the Ulster counties afaik, Tyrone I think

ollaetta

zetecescort wrote: »

there's a Moy in one of the Ulster counties afaik, Tyrone I think

Had to Google it and you're right but the official name appears to be Moy Tír na nÓg.

FatherTed

A few in the US:

Fr Tom Burke's HC, Boston, MA
Barley House Wolves Hurling Club (HC), Concord, NH
Aidan McAnespie's Gaelic Football Club (GFC), Boston, MA
Mairead Farrell's Ladies GFC, Philadelphia
Fog City Harps LGFC, San Francisco, CA

ciarriaithuaidh

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Where did Nemo Rangers come from?
Nothing to do with a colourful fish or a submarine owner I presume?

Always wondered about this and finally got the real story.
Originally 2 separate clubs, Nemo and Rangers.
Rangers had been based in the Turners Cross area of Cork and were mainly football.
The Nemo part is obviously the most interesting. Many pupils in the famous North Monastery school in Cork were anxious to play hurling, but the school was anti-GAA in those days (this is pre 1920) and wouldn't allow a hurling team to be set up. To get around this, a teacher in the school came up with the name "Nemo"...which incorporates the initials of the school NM into the latin word Nemo, meaning "nobody" which was though appropriate. Nemo hurling club was thus formed and ended up basing itself around the South Parish area of Cork City close to Turners Cross. In 1922, there being a big overlap in players between the 2 clubs aswell as a geographical overlap, the 2 clubs decided to amalgamate and thus in 1922, Nemo Rangers was founded.
From then until around 5 years ago, the club was based in the same area around Turners Cross, before the club moved to new grounds in Trabeg down the South Douglas road.

CrabRevolution

ollaetta wrote: »

Most clubs in Clare have their location in their names. Only two with half exotic names I can think of are Kilmurry Ibrickane and St. Josephs Doora Barefield but again they include their parishes.

We might be able to claim the shortest name though with the Moy GAA club.

I'd say that probably comes joint first with a club called Emo, in Laois.

klairondavis

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I'd say that probably comes joint first with a club called Emo, in Laois.

And Spa in Kerry.

Realt Dearg Sec

rpurfield wrote: »

Yep, personally I was a bit disappointed Duleek/Bellewstown didn't come up with something a bit more exciting than sticking a slash in between the names when they merged a few years ago now.

I know this is an old thread but if a team has an unusual name because it's named after their village/town its not that unusual. It's the likes of Tulsk Lord Edwards and Starlights in Dublin I'd be more interested in finding out the origins of

Our club Realt Dearg, I guess is pretty unusual. It doesn't refer to anything and started out as a joke until we realised it'd be fairly easy to make a cool crest and in turn to have cool jerseys. We were not wrong on that front, although it probably looks like we're a team of communists. When the official club history is written we'll come up with some persuasive lie about why the club had that name, something that doesn't include texting stupid ideas including one about calling ourselves Red Star Dublin and pairing up with a Serbian team.

FatimaKid

CD-R 80 wrote: »

Thats my club

The Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Mourne Road Drimnagh,opened 9th April 1943 and situated just three miles fromO Connell bridge.

Club were founded in 1954 I think and used the Parish name.

Hon' the Counsel

BonnieSituation wrote: »

My auld club. Le sigh.

Me too..but thinking about it makes me feel old as I've not disgraced that field in such a long time.

CrabRevolution

Recently saw a (not particularly positive) article on a club hurling match in Kerry and one of the teams was called Lady's Walk. I'd heard of all the usual Kerry hurling teams (Causeway, Kilmoyley, Ballyduff, Lixnaw etc.) before but had never heard of this club.

Seems they are a second team from Ballyduff. Cant say I've ever heard of a clubs second team having a different name before. Are they a club in their own right or something? Does a player have to transfer from one to the other?

feargale

Tipperary Stonethrower wrote: »

The Fighting Cocks is acutally the name of a place. It's on the main road, the N80, from Bunclody to Carlow just a few miles from Ballon near the M9. By the way the club have just reached the Intermediate Football Final. I assume the name comes from the fact that a lot of cock fights took place there in the old day.

Would it be that there once was an inn of that name? That's how some places got named, e.g. Blacklion and, I imagine, Blue Ball and Horse and Jockey to name but a few.

washman3

CrabRevolution wrote: »

Recently saw a (not particularly positive) article on a club hurling match in Kerry and one of the teams was called Lady's Walk. I'd heard of all the usual Kerry hurling teams (Causeway, Kilmoyley, Ballyduff, Lixnaw etc.) before but had never heard of this club.

Seems they are a second team from Ballyduff. Cant say I've ever heard of a clubs second team having a different name before. Are they a club in their own right or something? Does a player have to transfer from one to the other?

Sometimes a hurling team from a parish is called one name and the football team from the same parish by another. An example of this in my county would be Garryspillane in hurling and Galbally in football. Inter-county star James Ryan plays for both.
I haven't heard of 2 hurling teams from the same parish going under different names though.
Dublin do field 2 teams in national league, so do Down. Names escape me at the moment.

BonnieSituation

Fingal is the Dublin team and South Down (formerly Non-Ards) is the Down team.

CrabRevolution

Think South Down are gone. Fingal still compete though.

Hibbeler

I know this is off thread but I have wondered why Down was selected to have a second regional team in the lower hurling championships? I can see the logic behind fingal though

fatherted1969

Twomilehouse (Kildare) has to be fairly unique. Won an all Ireland junior title this year too

feargale

Hibbeler wrote: »

I know this is off thread but I have wondered why Down was selected to have a second regional team in the lower hurling championships? I can see the logic behind fingal though

And while your at it, why Fingal?

BonnieSituation

Hibbeler wrote: »

I know this is off thread but I have wondered why Down was selected to have a second regional team in the lower hurling championships? I can see the logic behind fingal though

Basically Down have a large population in the South of the County that predominantly play football.

Ards is the traditional hurling stronghold, so as to incentivise people in the South of the County to take up hurling they decided to create the South Down team. It enabled non-Ards hurlers the chance to compete at a senior inter-county level and hopefully over time add players to the main Down side. Same reasoning behind Fingal.

feargale

68Murph68 wrote: »

I think the worst names are the saints name clubs - St Patricks, St Marys eld
Dull, boring, nothing unique

Agreed. Some years ago a waggish Irish journalist, writing about New York Knickerbockers asked tongue in cheek " why don't they call themselves something original, like Sarsfields?" Yes, there are some interesting and imaginative GAA club names, but too many of them are cliched, like Éire Ôg, Wolfe Tones, Rangers, Rovers, Emmets etc.. If historical figures must be honoured wouldn't naming one club after them be sufficient? Also, while a number of Ulster clubs are named after hunger strikers etc. to my knowledge not one club in Ireland is named after any of the 30 or so members of the Garda Siochana who have been murdered since the foundation of the state, some of whom distinguished themselves at Gaelic games.
While I'm at it, and excuse me going slightly off topic, why do so many counties sport the same colours while numerous available alternative colour combinations are not used? Red and blue is probably the most glaring omission, if it's not treasonous to mention it.

BonnieSituation

The reasoning behind our county colours is bizarre. As the entrants into the All-Ireland's used to be the county champions they were the colours that were worn in the early days of the Championship.

If a team say dominated a county and were the representative team regularly their colours became associated with that County (Ballina Stephenites>Mayo) in other cases there were practical financial reasons (Kildare jerseys supplied by Lillywhite Mills, An accidental dying say in the case of Dublin or even the result of a ballot in the case of Offaly. And then there are other traditional reasons.

The Green and Gold obsession and Blue and Gold obsession is way more pronounced than that of red surely?

EDIT: http://www.gaa.ie/about-the-gaa/provinces-and-counties/about-county/county-colours/