The grit and glory of the Wild Geese hurling story

By John Harrington

Aidan Lenehan has penned two books on the hurling story of Wild Geese GAA club in Dublin since 2008 which is a fair achievement considering there was no hurling in Wild Geese before 2008.

His first book, ‘There is an F in Hurling’, recounted how he and some fellow small ball zealots brought hurling to the Oldtown club 17 years ago and was a very entertaining underdog story.

His second, 'Grit and Glory – A Decade at the Club', written in collaboration with his brother Fergal, is another good read that proves hurling can really blossom in previously rocky spoil given enough care and attention.

It’s a timely tome too given that the GAA’s new National Head of Hurling, William Maher, has set himself the target of establishing a minimum of 30 new hurling units every year in priority growth areas.

One of his and the Hurling Development Committee’s ideas is to establish hurling units that can draw in players from a number of existing GAA clubs that currently only play Gaelic football.

That’s precisely what Wild Geese have done so well and it’s had a transformative impact on the club.

Back in 2008 they only had one adult men’s team and the club as a whole was on life support.

Today they have two adult male teams, one adult camogie team, three juvenile camogie teams and four juvenile hurling teams.

They have just redeveloped their existing club grounds and the club is a social as well as sporting hub that’s very much the heartbeat of the community.

Galway native Lenehan never imagined his desire to find a way to play hurling when he moved to rural north Dublin in the early noughties would have such a powerful domino effect.

“I was in my mid-thirties and always had an inclination to go back hurling,” he now recalls. “I had hurled in Galway for Kiltormer at underage level and had hurled at adult level for Pearses in Roscommon. My father was a policeman and moved around a bit.

“I had the idea of going into Swords or River Valley or Malahide to play because there were a lot of established clubs in the area but none of them offered hurling.

“At a national school fundraiser I met a guy from Castlegar in Galway and I said it to him and he liked the idea and by the end of the night there were three or four of us up for it.

“The weakest club in the area was the Wild Geese. They had one junior E adult football team. They had no juvenile section. They had a pitch in the middle of the village and a lot of the kids from the village were playing with Fingal Ravens, Garristown and Ballyboughal. They had attempted to start juvenile but they just didn't have the numbers.

“So, basically, we approached the Chairman who is now president, Sean McNulty, and he was all on for the idea. As he said himself it brought a bit of life back to the village.

“I suppose it was the perfect place because the fact we had no juvenile football section, nobody saw us as a threat to them.

“Then we went to other clubs saying the Wild Geese are going to do hurling. Some of them were frosty but, by and large, they didn't see us as a threat and lot of the lads were very into it. Most of them had never played before but they always had the idea they'd like to give it a go.

“We basically had a team of footballers playing hurling, to be honest, and you could see it in the way we played. There was a lot of kicking of the ball in the beginning.”

Lenehan and his fellow players had the foresight and fortitude to establish underage structures in the club at the same that they registered a team in the senior grade.

By his own admission they were winging it for the first few years but they stuck at it and the club has now reaped the rewards.

A generation of young players that won a couple of U-16 league titles together would go on to form the bulk of the team that won the Dublin Junior C Hurling Championship last year.

It is their story that Lenehan tells in ‘Grit and Glory – A Decade at the Club’.

“I was mentoring lads who were U12 right up to minor and they were all saying you'll have to write about us next,” says Lenehan.

“I just brushed it off but then I was thinking, 'why not?', because they came in the gate when we started in 2008/2009. They were six, seven, eight, years of age back then and last year they won the Junior C championship.

"We have gone from being a hurling team full of Gaelic footballers to being a hurling team where a lot of them are dual players but they were hurlers. You could see it. There was no kicking of the ball and they knew how to play. They had the wrist technique and they had everything else.

“So, I suppose, the second book is about their coming of age and the trials and tribulations.

“We had never won a championship before last October and in the space of seven days the camogie team won their junior championship and the men won their junior championship. It was fairly phenomenal.

“From having now hurling in the club we now have a tradition of hurling.”

Wild Geese GAA club is now very much at the heart of their north Dublin community.

If you’ve ever played an away match against them, you’ll have quickly appreciated that.

They draw the sort of large, vocal crowd that really isn’t common at club matches in Dublin, it’s much more akin to what you might experience down the country where a match is a social as well as a sporting occasion.

“The village, I won't say it was dead, but before there was nothing really for people on Sundays," says Lenehan.

“One guy there, Vincie Fitzpatrick, he's in his eighties now, and then all of a sudden he started coming to all our matches and would be standing at the pump on a day we had an away game and would come to the matches.

“He sort of took the team under his wing. That happened for a lot of people who wouldn't have seen a hurling game before in their life but because it was in the community and because it took off it became sort of a ritual on Sunday.

“Now between the juveniles, the ladies, and the two men’s teams, there's quite a selection of games for people to watch. It wouldn't be unknown for us to have 50 to 70 supporters coming to games which might be normal in Tipp and Galway but in Dublin just isn't normal.

“Those of us who started hurling in the club got it to a stable position where we had good people running it, but in recent years it has really gone from strength to strength.

“Camogie has really blossomed and brought it to a whole new level. We have two pitches now. A farmer gave us a field in the country-side and we rent that off him. Our own pitch in the centre of the village has been redeveloped and there's lights going in on it and the pitch is busy four or five nights a week.

“We've gone from having 40 or 50 paid up members in the beginning to around 230 members now. There's a great vibrancy about it and what it has brought to the community is something that's now cherished.

“Like everything, there has to be renewal. We brought it to the level where we weren't consistently worrying about surviving. We laid the foundation and now others have come along to build upon it.

“We have an excellent chairperson, a woman from Limerick that moved up a few years ago, and most committees are half and half men and women. The club has rejuvenated itself. A lot of them are young and very energetic, they really are an amazing bunch.”

Lenehan has no doubts that the Wild Geese success story is one that can be replicated up and down the country.

Hurling and camogie are such brilliant sports that they sell themselves. You just have to make them available to play.

“Oh God, yeah,” says Lenehan. “My father was a Tulsk Lord Edwards man and my uncle was President of the club until he passed away recently. Weirdly enough, they have a camogie unit that a lady from Four Roads set up and they have a very strong Gaelic football club.

“I would have always said to my uncle that you're mad not to set up a hurling club as well. You have decent sized towns like Castlerea, Strokestown, Frenchpark, and Ballinagare close by and they don't have hurling. I used always say to them that if a Garda or prison officer moves into the area and they're a good hurler, if you have the set-up they'll come to you.

“And the chances are that if they play hurling they will also play football so you'll increase your membership, you'll have better facilities, you'll have a hurling team there and all it will do is bring in half a dozen good footballers too.

“Coincidentally enough a guy that I used to hurl with, Damen Curley, is now Connacht Director of Hurling and one of the clubs they've targeted is Tulsk.

“Until now there has been no hurling for men in north Roscommon, absolutely nothing. So, I do think what we have done is a good example for others to follow and I know Jarlath Burns was intrigued by it when he came to the book launch because he feels this is a good solution for a club that's struggling on the football side to rejuvenate itself and work with neighbouring clubs.

“Because at the end of the day we couldn't have succeeded without the other clubs not standing in our way. We just wouldn't have had enough numbers.

“When Jarlath visited us he felt this was a perfect solution for a lot of places.

“But you don't have to wait for Jarlath Burns or someone from the Hurling Development Committee to knock on your door. You can go and do this yourself. And you'll find that county boards are very amenable and will do what they can to assist you and to help you.”

'Grit and Glory – A Decade at the Club’ is available to purchase HERE. All proceeds go to Wild Geese GAA club.