Tag Archives: eire og

A LOCAL pigeon racing club has scored a real ‘coo’ with the arrival of their newest member. The Banner Racing Pigeon Club has just purchased a state-of-the-art trailer, specially designed for their needs. This comes after the flying success of a fundraising effort in which 42 birds were auctioned off last year. The trailer will make it easier for the club to head to overseas races, having previously relied on others for help with transporting the birds. The pigeon club started in Ennis 20 years ago, with 15 members now involved and youngsters gaining an interest in the sport. The club races against others from all over the West of Ireland. Treasurer, George Guilfoyle explained that a decision was made last year to fundraise for the trailer. “We decided to have an auction and prize winning birds were donated by people from all over Ireland and the UK. The people at St Mary’s Pigeon Club in Limerick and Galway Racing …

CLARECASTLE will host one of the most eagerly awaited games of the 2013 Clare Senior Football Championship when Cratloe and Éire Óg meet in the county semi-final on Sunday. Perhaps it should be rephrased slightly as ‘one of the most eagerly awaited games of this week’. Since the football championship re-started after the All-Ireland hurling final, there has been a desperate rush to get it over with. The same applies to the club hurling, which shows the GAA’s prerogative lies with the inter-county scene. Still, the winners of this game won’t worry about the big picture. They won’t have time, as the county final is scheduled for the following weekend. It seems like another age when Éire Óg knocked reigning champions Kilmurry Ibrickane out of the championship on September 15 in Kilmihil. Their 2-5 to 0-10 win reverberated around Clare football for a day or two but has been all but forgotten about since. Had Éire Óg another game within …

BOB O’Brien could afford a wry smile as he listened with interest to the half-time conversation among the Éire Óg U-8 hurlers during a recent underage hurling blitz involving teams from Clare and Limerick. The main topic of conversation among the young hurlers at the tournament in Old Christians was who could be the number 22, as they attempted to repeat Shane O’Donnell’s sensational tally of 3-3, which steered Clare to their fourth thrilling All-Ireland senior hurling success. The Éire Óg hurling academy manager smiled as he reflected. “What Shane O’Donnell has done for the game is incredible. These six or seven-year-olds want to line out in the No.22 jersey and become the next Shane O’Donnell. Players were telling each other, I am 22 in this game and you can be 22 in the next game. It is fantastic for the game of hurling and is a great boost for the club,” he said. This is just one example of …

By Peter O’Connell Éire Óg 0-15 Cooraclare 1-10 WHAT a difference 86 phone calls can make. After giving a walkover to Moy in their Division 6 League fixture on May 12, Éire Óg called an emergency meeting attended by Mattie Murphy, Pat Fitzpatrick, Robbie Malone and junior football captain, John Griffin. They weren’t overreacting, as Éire Óg had already given earlier walkovers to Killimer, Kilmurry Ibrickane and Wolfe Tones. Speaking after Éire Óg had won the Junior A Championship, selector Mattie Murphy recalled that fateful meeting. “We were after giving three walkovers because we couldn’t field a team. I think we had 11 for the Wolfe Tones game. I brought every team list from last year and we went through every name available. John Griffin took the phone number of every one of those 86 players and contacted them. We played two league games after that. We beat O’Curry’s by a point and we beat Kilkee,” Mattie recalled. Fast-forward five …

By Seamus Hayes A week after their memorable All-Ireland final victory, many of the Clare senior hurlers returned to competitive action when the domestic championship resumed after a twenty week break. There were no surprises as three games were played in the senior A competition and a further two were decided in the senior B title race. Following his never to be forgotton display in Clare’s victory over Cork, nineteen year old Shane O’Donnell was in the Eire Og team that faced Smith O’Briens from Killaloe. Having lost their opening tie, victory was a must for the Ennis side in this one and they achieved this comfortable, winning on a 3-23 to 0-7 scoreline. O’Donnell, however, failed to get on the scoresheet on this occasion when his fellow inter county panellist, Davy O’Halloran hit some fine scores. O’Callaghans Mills, home club of Clare captain Pat Donnellan, scored their second win of the campaign when accounting for Ruan. Meanwhile in the …

CLARE senior football champions Kilmurry-Ibrickane are out of the 2013 title race. At Kilmihil on this Sunday evening they suffered a one point loss to Éire Óg in a quarter final tie that produced some great excitement, writes Seamus Hayes. The game was delayed for over half an hour in the opening half whilc injured Eire Og midfielder Darren O’Neill received attention. At half time the town side led the title holders by the odd point in five. Éire Óg had the better of the early second half exchanges and opened a nine point lead, 2-5 to 0-2. The champions refused to go down without a fight, however, and they dominated the last quarter hitting eight unanswered points. In the final minute, Ian McInerney’s free to level the game rebounded into play off the upright. Earlier today, Lissycasey booked their quarter final spot with a one point win over Ennistymon in a tie that required extra time. The final score here …

Clare 1-16 Galway 0-7 A BLISTERING start to the second half, which saw them score 1-5 in 10 minutes, paved the way for a comfortable Clare victory over Galway in the All-Ireland U-21 hurling semi-final at Thurles last Saturday evening. Starting the second half just two points adrift, Galway held high hopes of dethroning the All-Ireland champions but Clare stepped up the pace and by the midpoint of the half, the holders were well on the way to a second successive final. The all-important goal came three minutes after the resumption and was scored by Cathal O’Connell, one of the stars in this latest victory for Clare. Indeed, such was Clare’s dominance in the second half that with 10 minutes remaining, they were able to call ashore senior star Podge Collins and then replaced two more members of the senior team, Colm Galvin and Tony Kelly, ahead of the upcoming senior final clash with Cork. An injury to Aaron Cunningham …

Clare’s joint manager Gerry O’Connor described the second-half performance by Clare as “phenomenal”. “The way it transpired was exactly as we had predicted. We reckoned the first half would be really low scoring, a real and out and out dog fight and that’s exactly how it turned out,” he said. According to the Éire Óg clubman, “Donal [Moloney] said to the lads at half-time, in the most positive way possible, that they needed to move up a gear. The second-half performance was just phenomenal, the running off the ball, the support play. Alan O’Neill at centre-back was awesome, to be fair to him. Peter Duggan started winning puck-outs but Tots’ [Cathal O’Connell] movement off Peter Duggan was phenomenal.” “We have been on the road with these guys for four years now. That was the 2010 minor team. We have such a passionate affinity with them that it’s unbelievable. We had a team meeting with the guys on Monday before this …