Naomh Fionnbarra GAA


Naomh Fionnbarra GAA is a Gaelic Athletic Association club in based in Cabra, in the north city area of Dublin.
The club has adult football, hurling and camogie teams.
The Naomh Fionnbarra Hurling Football Comogie club was founded in 1945. The club has been synonymous with Gaelic Games and Irish culture for 65 years in the Cabra Area. The club was set up to promote and develop the Irish culture, language, and heritage through the medium of the GAA.
It was also set up to give the young people of Cabra an important outlet and past time that cater for the boundless energy and enthusiasm that youth brings in a new area and over the last 65 years. The men who were mainly involved with the foundation of the club were Jack Casserly RIP, Joe Brady RIP, Ned Wolahan RIP, and Bill Bracken RIP.
These men started by running Roads League for juveniles and later on they entered the Dublin Juvenile Leagues. The club was the first parish in Dublin to run road leagues which are still been run today. In 1946 our under 14 team reached the hurling final in the ’15 Acres’ but lost.
The following year we won our first trophies which were an under 15 hurling league and an under 16 football league. In the early forties men like Jack Casserly use to sell raffle tickets around the doors for fire wood to raise money for the young club.
As the club grew men like Seamus Nolan became involved and the clubs enter a Junior Hurling Team. Seamus was a Waterford man who was one of the first residents on Bannow Road and the club used his house all through the fifties to hold their meetings. In 1952 the club won the junior D league, 1953 the junior C League, Smith Cup, and in 1954 they won the Miller Shield.
The year 1958 the club won the B league in hurling. In the early fifties another man joined the club. He put more work into the club for the next thirty years then anybody has ever done or indeed could do. He worked tireless getting juvenile teams together and there was not a house in Cabra that he had not called to in his quest for players. The man of course was Gerry Kehoe.
From his house in no. 4 Bannow Road he worked to get children involved in the club. From a small village in Wicklow mountains called “Annacurra’, Gerry was a very good player himself. He won a Wicklow minor medal and an All Ireland junior football medal in 1938 with London.
Larry Kearns another great worker for the club joined Gerry and their hard work began to pay off in the late fifties and early sixties when their juveniles teams won two under 15 Hurling Leagues, 16 Hurling league and Minor Hurling and Football leagues. Indeed there is little doubt that the Juveniles teams produced by these men in the fifties and sixties were the main reason for some of our adult victories in the sixties.
St Finbarrs School has always played a big part in the continual supply of player’s for the Club. As far back as 1943 when the school teams became the first Primary school to win the Hurling and Football in the same year. They have since won many trophies and this was due to the great interest show by Maurice Mc Auliffe, Paddy Ban O Brion and Dessie Ryan. In 1958 the club started a Comogie section and this was ran by Jim Byrne and his wife Mureen Byrne.
The club was always considered to be more hurling than football, so it came as a surprise to many that our first adult Championship victory came in football. This was when the junior footballers won the Junior Championship and Junior A League in 1961. The team won a Championship in 1962 and the Camogie section lasted up until 1968.
Under the management of Joe Brady, John Myles, Ned Wolahan, the team beat the mighty St Vincent in Parnell Park. This was the start of what would be called the Golden decade as the club won a number of championships and leagues to go both senior Hurling and Football in a 12 year period. In 1966 the football team won their way into senior ranks by winning the inter football Championship.
The Junior Hurlers made the big break through in 1965 by winning the junior Hurling league and championship. In 1968 our under 13 footballers was beaten in the A league final and this team would be the back bone of the Cabra west team who won three consecutive community games Gold medals in Croke Park. In 1969 they won the double in inter championship and league.
The Hurlers won the senior hurling league in 1970 to get the decade off to a strong start. In 1971 they won the senior hurling league again. In the 73, 74,75 season the club team won a number of junvenile leagues in under 12, 13 and 14 but lost our senior football status in 1976.
It was at this time that the club went through a lean period but it was at this time that the seeds would be planted for the clubs future development. With the work of committees still be done by some of the older members like Gerry Kehoe, Seamus Nolan, Nancy Keogh and John Myles a number of younger members took a more interest in the workings of the club and its teams. Mick Brown, Timmy Mulane, Phil Lynch, Joe Glynn, Paddy Keogh, Joe Casserly, Willy Mc Auly, Sean Myles, Hughie Flanagan, Mary Myles and Johnnie Smithers.
The club had always a great desire to get its own club house and in 1961 a development committee was set up to achieved this Gerry Kehoe, Donal Massey and Paddy Dillon club chairman. They were offered a piece of land behind the church on Killkearnan Road but hadn’t the money at the time to develop. In 1974 the club committee approached the city council to build a club house on the site of Bogies that now houses the community centre. They were refused and this further restricted the clubs development in the seventies.
In 1978 Gerry Kehoe was the clubs representative on the old Cabra community council and the issue of Clairville House came up on the agenda. It was proposed to knock it down as both the Legion of Mary and the Pigeon Club had been using it and due to vandalism they had to leave the building.
Gerry Kehoe proposed to the council that the club would take it over. This was put to the club executive who gave the permission and this would be the clubs premises for the next 16 years. From this move would come the foundation for the new club house in the nineties.
The year 1983 will go down as one of the most successful years in our club history, when our hulers won the league, Championship and Doyle cup in a two month period. This team was manage by Philly Lynch, Timmy Mulane and Phelim Brady. In 1984 the footballers having won the city inter league lost out in a play off with St Anne’s by a point to go to the final to go senior. In 1983 the club formed a Comogie team for the second time.
Jackie McKeogh and a number of the women put in a junior Camogie team which resulted in a Camogie section being set up in 1985. Jackie McKeogh, Elish Langan, Eileen Farrell,and Orla Langan Kim McKehoe were all involved in getting this section up and running.
At this time in the mid eighties a number of young people became involved in running the teams and working on the committees. Joe Lyons, Tommy Mc Donagh, Peter Fizgearld, Mick Ward, Ray O’Reilly, Shane McGill, Vincent Kehoe, Declan Fagan, Kenneth Broughan, Paul McManus, Hugh Flanagan, Seamus Kehoe, Paul Tunner, Stephen Morgan, John Morgan, Tommo Kelly, Jimmy Fagan, Robert Brady, Paul Farrell, Thomas ‘Big Mac’ Mc Donald, Anto Keogh, Tony Smith, Terry McKeogh and Anthony ‘Gossey‘ Costello.
On the playing fields the senior hurlers in 1985 reached the quarter final of the senior hurling championship losing out by two points to Eoghan Ruadh who reached the final. The intermediate football team won the Stephens cup in 1984 and a number of our juveniles teams won leagues.
In early 1980 a major fundraiser was started to get money to build a new club house. Fred Turner with a number of club members organized this massive fundraising effort which was supported well by the people of Cabra.
Another source of fundraising was program selling outside Croke Park. This was started in the late fifties when Seamus Nolan got the club into Croke Park to sell the programs on big match days. With Joe Casserly and Gerry Kehoe setting the foundation it still remains a great fundraiser for the club and the children who sell it.
In this period Frank O Neill RIP, Dinny Vavosure RIP, Paddy Kelly ‘The Saint’ put in a lot of work in at committee and team management.
In 1993 the senior hurlers won the senior hurling league and the junior football team won the Mooney Cup under the management of Paul Farrell. The Senior Hurling selectors were Joe Moran, Joe Lyons and Tommy McDonagh.
In 1992 the club submitted plans for a new club house at the site at Clairville house but the council refused it. At that time two officials, Grace McGuire and Tom Mitchell, of the corporation were very sympathetic to the clubs position on a new club house.
They offered the club the playground site on Faussagh Avenue which had be lying idle for a number of years. The club had a general meeting and the members agreed to the move. The club drew up plans for the site with three of our members putting their houses up for collateral to allow the club to borrow 200,000 Irish pounds.
With further money raised from big draws the club ran, work began on the new club house. The three members who put up their house are Joe Casserly, Elish Langan and Timmy Mulane.
The club and the area will always be grateful for their faith and action. The new clubhouse was open in 1995 and is the heart of the community in Cabra. Five years later the club build a new gym complex with weights room, sauna, squash court, gym hall and changing rooms.
Within a year the club installed an all-weather pitch when the City Council gave the club the remainder of the old playground.
On the playing pitch over the last 15 years the club has gone from strength to strength. In football the club regained senior status by winning the Intermediate Championship in 2000.
Within five years they had reached two championship finals and were joint winners of the league twice losing out in two plays offs. The selectors were Nicky Kehoe, Sean Kehoe and John Smithers.
In 2001 the junior football team won the league under the selectors of Paul Farrell, Gerry Kehoe and Harry Byrne. In 2007 the Intermediate team won the league under the management of Peter Fitzgerald, Mick Ward and Ciaran Stone.
In 2001 the under 14 won the division 2 Féile and won division 7 in 2003. The mentors were Ronnie O Brian, Joe Glynn, Linda Lyons, Paul McManus and Paddy Whelan. Noel Paget, Dermot Smithers, Tony Smithers and Sean Kehoe were the managers of the division 7 team.
In 1998 the under 12 Comogie team won the A Championship and in 2002 the club won the A Championship again at under 12 level. The mentors were Madeleine Paget, Vincent Kehoe, Karl Homes and John Brown.
In the adult section of Comogie, the team won the Junior B Championship in 1998 under the selectors of Joyce Carroll and Dessie Pool, and won the intermediate championship in 2005 under the management of Deark Sweetman, Catherin Kirby and Timmy Mulane.
In 2008 the Senior Hurling team got promoted to Senior League Division 1, won the intermediate championship and reached the Leinster GAA Hurling Club Championship final. They were managed by Joe Brady, Joe Moran, Willy Mc auly, Martin Costelo, Nicky Kehoe and John Byrne.
In 1996 a small Irish language crèche was started by Elish Langan and Ellen Farrell. The seed planted, to promote our native tongue, has resulted in 250 pupils attending this school in 2010. A great achievement for all involved.

Roll of Honour