Leading Mayo rugby club to mark 140th anniversary

Series of events planned to celebrate Castlebar RFC landmark

Rugby in Castlebar has never been stronger than at the present time.

Castlebar Rugby Club facilitates coaching and games for a membership of more than five hundred male and female players from five-years-old up to adults.

Getting the club to where it is today was a long journey, with many sterling volunteers and players adding to the club along the way.

Those members will be remembered this year as the club sets to mark its 140th anniversary.

Castlebar Rugby Club was founded in the winter of 1885.

The energy of the club’s first captain, Dr. William De Exeter Jordan, has been credited with building the organisation in its fledgling years.

Initially, games were played against British regiments quartered in Castlebar. Some members of the first club committees were also members of the British military.

Like most sporting clubs, membership levels and fortunes on the field waned due mostly to war during the early and mid-twentieth century.

But rugby enthusiasts in Castlebar could not be contained and life was always breathed back into the club, as it was in the 1940s when the club’s original strip of black and amber was changed to today’s sky blue and navy blue.

The colour change was made primarily because club member Michael Heverin presented the club with a set of jerseys in the colours of his old school, Castleknock College.

The club entered the modern era with a rejuvenating rebuild in 1971.

The efforts coincided with the GAA’s lifting of its Rule 27, which had prohibited GAA members from playing foreign sports.

Talented Gaelic football players were now free to assist the town’s other football teams.

After years of playing in locations including Flannelly’s Field, Nyland’s Field, Maryland Park, and at an excellent playing pitch near the town’s airport, it was time to expand the club.

In 1974, the club purchased eight acres of land five kilometres south of Castlebar in Cloondeash and developed a new pitch there.

A clubhouse was added in 1984. The current club committee is advancing plans to extend the clubhouse and players’ facilities at Cloondeash.

Castlebar Rugby Club president Kevin McGing is looking forward to a full calendar of events.

He said: "Over 140 years, the game of rugby has been a central element of the sporting and social life of Castlebar.

"This year we will be celebrating the role rugby has played in our town through remembering the many players and volunteers that have gone before and by honouring them with ambitious plans for further growth.’

Following its colourful participation in the local St. Patrick’s Day parade, the club is planning for the upcoming sell-out URC game between Connacht and Munster at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park at the end of March.

Thousands of rugby supporters will be welcomed to Castlebar by local club member and past club president Jimmy Staunton, in his current role as president of Connacht Rugby.

Club members have served rugby at national and provincial level in the past. Jimmy continues that proud service along with club members Gerry Casey, who is a member of the IRFU Committee, and Johnny McCormack, who sits on Connacht Rugby’s Competitions Committee.

On May 3, the Connacht Juniors will play their Ulster counterparts in the IRFU Interprovincial Series at the home of Castlebar RFC at Cloondeash.

Declan Madden, president of the IRFU, will be in attendance to officially open the club’s new spectator stand and attend a function at the clubhouse.

An anniversary golf event is being organised by the rugby club at Castlebar Golf Club in June and later in the year, a prominent Irish rugby international and special guests will attend a club function in Castlebar.

An exhibition spanning many decades of Castlebar Rugby Club’s history will be on display in the Linenhall Arts Centre during September and October.

Anyone who has old photographs of club members or activities are asked to contact club secretary Noel Campbell at rfccastlebar@gmail.com.

The anniversary events will draw to a close in November with an illustrated talk on the history of rugby in Castlebar in Mayo County Library.

Further details will be available on Castlebar RFC’s social media accounts.