Antrim - St Comhgalls

What a long way to come in a short time!

On Christmas Eve morning 2007, as last minute shoppers crowded the car parks of Antrim's Junction One, they might not have noticed the band of youngsters, who trooped onto the field across the main road. They were most likely unaware that these same children were creating their own piece of history by staging the first ever playing of Gaelic games on the grasslands at Dunsilly. Just two days earlier, the purchase contract, originally signed with CLG Naomh Comhghall back in August 2006, had been completed and the twenty one acres passed into the ownership of Cumann L�th-Chleas Gael.

Kids with President Nicky Brennan

Hearing the shouts of the excited footballers and hurlers in the Mid- Winter crisp air was sufficient reward for the watching adults who had worked so determinedly in order that this day would arrive.In just over two years, CLG Naomh Comhghall had, quite literally, arisen from the ashes and secured a sound future for the GAA Community in Antrim Town.This effort was further recognised on May 2 when St Comgalls received from Uachtarán Comhairle Uladh, Tom Daly, the Irish News 'Special Recognition' Award, and, five days later, Nicky Brennan became the first GAA President to visit Antrim Town and sit down among our youth at the launch of the new Centre of Excellence/Club Base.

Much of the story in relation to Dunsilly is written about elsewhere and much remains still to be written, but while the detail of the home base is being progressed, Club members have focused their attention on Games Development.

The New Year brought a fresh impetus with the re-start of the Winter training at Antrim Forum, where Sunday afternoons brought upwards of 100 boys and girls aged 6-14, all well organised and skilled by coaches who had completed earlier rounds of training. And, with the February frosts, returned the enthusiastic Ciarán O'Neill to put another band of volunteers through their Foundation Level paces, in his inimitable style. This served to add to our expanding base of prepared coaches, a situation which was further added to in early May, when pressure for the return of the small ball games brought Seamus Eliot to St Comgalls for a Hurling/Camogie Foundation course. This was enjoyed by 30 participants half of whom were from the home Club. It wasn't long before their training was put into service with the launch of Coaching Sessions on May 24 and these have continued since, with great demand from our future stars.

The increased participation of adults has brought with it a corresponding rise in the numbers of children for whom we can effectively cater, and, during the Summer months, up to 200 young members were each week availing of the opportunities provided in all codes. One of the highlights of the year was undoubtedly our first ever staging of C�l Camp, which provided much enjoyment for the 90 children who took part and indeed for their adult coaches.Towards the other end of the school holidays, the children and adults were given the opportunity to display their individual skills and teamwork at the hugely successful Sports Day, when teams from Ballymena, Bellaghy, Rasharkin and Belfast (O'Donnells and �ire Óg) joined us in staging a great day's entertainment..

One of the most satisfying aspects of the re-building has been the sight of additional St Comgalls teams take to the field in our Club colours. In 2006 we were represented at juvenile level solely by under12s, 2007 saw under 14s and in 2008 an under 16 team joined the league.This latter group of 'late starters' have brought great credit to our Club, for despite losing all their games, they demonstrated the true qualities of sportsmen throughout the year. Honours on the field did however go to their younger members at under 14 level who defeated every team in their league and claimed the Club's first juvenile title in 18 years, when they won the South-West League Championship at Creggan. This was just reward for a group of players who formed the nucleus of the original under 12 'comeback' team of 2006, and who had lost then at the semi-final stage to Sean Stinsons, lost the following year's under14 final to the same opposition, but made it third time lucky against Dunloy in 2008.

The future for Naomh Comhghall looks very promising, given the number of opportunities provided to our young players by their committed coaches. 2008 has also seen greater involvement with the local schools including St Comgalls, St Joseph's, Greystone Primary, Steeple Nursery and Riverside Special School. Four of the Club coaches went as far as to run the Belfast marathon for Riverside SS and in the process raised £1200 for school funds.In competitive terms, the fielding of a Minor team in 2009 will once again provide the full complement of juvenile football teams, a tremenduous achievement in just over 3 years. In addition the girls fully intend to stamp their mark on the Camogie scene and breech a ten year gap by re-entering a Naomh Comhghall team in the League. Senior footballers made considerable progress under the encouragement of Colm Joyce and continue to recruit new players to the ranks. With the general uplift in the GAA community of Antrim Town, 2009 holds out the promise of continued good progress.