The History of St Oliver Plunketts
Hurling in Mullingar Pre-Plunketts
The game of hurling has had a very strong association in the town of Mullingar over the years. The very first hurling club was set up by St Marys Temperance Club in February 1902. The first hurling match in the town took place at the Newbrook Racecourse on St Patricks day 1903 when Mullingar Shamrocks beat a Longford team. The club was originally known as Mullingar Young Irelands and changed their name later to Mullingar Shamrocks. In that same year of formation, both the hurlers and footballers won their respective county titles in their first year. There probably aren't too many clubs in the country that can lay claim to that type of record. A year later, and the club went on to win the hurling championship for a second time. There were two more county titles again in 1935 and 1944 before the club finally decided to convert completely to gaelic football in 1953. Shamrocks is now one of the four main gaelic football clubs in the greater Mullingar region.
The county championship was to be won by a further three town based clubs. In 1924, Mental Hospital, whose modern equivalent is St Lomans - another of Mullingar’s gaelic football teams - won it by beating Castletown-Geoghehan in the final. Columb Rovers, who was an army based Mullingar team were the next team to annex the championship – this happened in 1945.
By the sixties, it was Pearses though, who had taken over the mantle of being the town’s main hurling team. They won the championship in 1962 before losing two county finals in a row in 1966 and 1967. This was to be the beginning of the end and almost five years later the club was formally disbanded.
But while the Pearses flames had been extinguished, five years after that a new club, Oliver Plunketts, would rise from its ashes. The are plenty of Pearses-Plunketts connections, with many of the previous Pearses players involved in the setting up of Plunketts and, even today, the Plunketts senior goalkeeper jersey is based on the same sky blue and white striped colours that Pearses once wore.
Cullion, an intermediate club based on the outskirts of the town near the townlands of Ballagh and Cullion, was the other club associated with the town and is currently the only other hurling club in the Mullingar area.
The beginning of Plunketts & the youth policy
In late 1976 Galway native Tony Donoghue put an advertisement in the Westmeath Examiner looking for people interested in setting up a local hurling club. Up to that point, Tony had been involved with Raharney, another hurling club a few miles out the road, but was keen on getting hurling going in the town.
There was a response and on the evening of the 5th April 1976 a group of local dedicated hurling enthusiasts met in the Lake County Hotel. By the end of the meeting the new hurling club was officially formed. Most of the men present would have had some involvement with Pearses previously, but there was some there who were anxious to see a proper hurling club formed for the town. During these times, the only hurling that was taking place in the area was the underage street leagues but now for the first time since 1972 the town itself had an official hurling club. The first chairman of the club was Noel Corcoran, who now resides in Castletown-Geoghehan. He was succeeded by Pat Nolan in 1978.
It took only a couple of years for the club to win their first piece of silverware. This was the Westmeath junior hurling championship in 1978. While this might have been seen as the springboard to become a successful senior club, instead the senior end of the club was disbanded in 1979, with the focus now changing to juvenile hurling and sowing the seeds for the 'grass roots'. There was almost immediate success as the U16s in 1979 reached the county final and drew with Raharney in Cusack Park only to lose out in the replay in Turin.
The setting up of a strong underage structure was key to the future of the club and this was masterminded by Tony Donoghue. He was ably assisted by people such as CBS teacher Danny Murray, former TD Paul McGrath and Brother Tom McCarry who strongly promoted hurling in St Mary’s CBS national school. The people involved in this had enough vision to understand the huge importance of having a nursery school as a feeder for the local hurling club. The CBS soon became that feeder school. It soon began to pay dividends and in 1985 the club had its very first success at underage level when the U16s beat Castlepollard in Turin to win the county championship. This was a watershed as the core of this team was the basis for another U16 championship victory the following year and it’s first minor hurling title in 1988.
Robinstown
1988 will also be remembered for another milestone for the club. Initially between 1976 and 1983, Plunketts shared their pitch with Mullingar Shamrocks. In 1983 the club applied to Westmeath County Council and rented a patch of land in Grange for training on at a cost of £25 per year. Danny Byrnes clothes shop was one of the first sponsors to pay the rental fee for the club. Finally though in 1988, the club managed to aquire a few acres of land in Robinstown on the North side of the town. Now the club had a place they could call their own.
The aquisition of this land did not come easily however and a lot of hard work had to be done initially. The ever reliable bingo sessions in county hall(now the Arts centre) in the early 80s generated some good finance, but this soley wouldn't have been enough to fund the complete development of the new hurling grounds. There were ten local business - people who were also hurling enthusiasts and wanted to see the local club succeed - who each guaranteed £3000 to the purchase of the land. On hindsight, this was a strong financial commitment especially on the back of one of the blackest economic periods in Irish history.
Over the coming years, the clubs new pitch slowly but surely took shape. There was much work to be done - two pitches were laid and more land had actually to be aquired in order to construct a proper access road coming in from the Castlepollard Road side
Trees were planted along the border of the pitch and gates put up at the entrance, while it was only in 1992 that the clubhouse was properly completed. During this period, the club members grafted hard and a lot of much needed funding was raised through golf classics and open days. Indeed the hurling grounds in Robinstown is something that many of the original club founders take great pride in, with the top pitch currently ranked as having one of the best playing surfaces in Westmeath.
The proud Féile na nGael tradition
With the inception of the new grounds and the hard work continuing at grass roots, the club was about to enter into it's most successful period to date - the nineteen-ninetys. In this time period the club won no less than five U12 county championship titles, four U14 county titles, five U16 titles and three Minor titles.
They also picked up five county Féile na nGael titles, but undoubtedly the highlight of the 90s was the winning of two National Féile na nGael titles – firstly the 1994 Division 3 (Michael Cusack Trophy) title and secondly winning the All-Ireland Division 2 Féile title (Canon Fogarty trophy) the following year in 1995.
These all-Ireland victories were very impressive when you consider that in 1994 Plunketts defeated Limerick sides Cappamore, Monagea, Caherline and Drom/Athlacca, while defeating O'Donovan Rossa from Belfast in the final. 1995 was even more impressive with victories over Ahane and Claughaun, Ballyduff from Kerry - all in the group stages, then Portlaoise in the semi final followed by a 3-7 to 2-1 victory over Offaly's Coolderry in the final. A club less than twenty years old had beaten well established teams from some of the so-called "stronger" hurling counties. The enormity of the achievement was not lost on the local dedicated supporters of the club, who came out to welcome home the All-Ireland victors back to Mullingar.
The club participated in further National Féiles after these two successful campaigns.
Plunketts qualified for the National Féiles in 1997, 1998 and 2001 where Plunketts made the trip to Waterford(Clonlea), Wexford(Duffy Rovers) and Cork(Blarney) respectively. In 2003, Westmeath & Meath co-hosted the National Feile and St Oliver Plunketts were one of the host clubs involved. Plunketts made it past the group stages and into the qualifiers.
The Féile tradition has been carried on and in 2008 the club was wild carded into the National Féile as a host club as Offaly & Laois fell short of hosting clubs for the event. The club hosted Bellmullet who travelled down from Mayo and stayed in Mullingar for the weekend. Plunketts surprised many in the county by reaching the Division 5 final. Unfortunately they lost out to Setanta from Donegal by 2 points in the end in a closely fought contest.
The following year, there was yet another wild card for Oliver Plunketts into the Laois-Offaly 2009 Féile na nGael. It was the turn of Naomh Eoin from Sligo to become our guests for the weekend. The pain of narrowly losing out in 2008 fuelled the determination of the 2009 players & mentors and drove them on to victory in June. The McMahon trophy came to the club for the first time and another national title was added to the list.
Féile All-Ireland Div 2 Champions 1995
Back row (L-R): David Cornally(Manager), Stephen Boggs, James Heffernan, Adrian Quinn, Willie Kiernan, Mickey Harris, Damien Shelly, Ian Egerton, John Smyth, Greg Gavin, Keith Matthews, Ollie McNamee, Alan Kelly(R.I.P) Front Row (L-R):Raymond Cahill, Conor Flanagan, Kevin Dunleavy, Kevin Baker, Ronan Moore, Declan Cassidy, Damien Kiernan, Declan Barry, Alan Cornally.
Tragic times
In November 1995, the club was rocked by news of the sudden tragic passing of club chairman John Joe Lynch. He had been one of the key figures in the participation, sponsorship and development of the club. He was also one of the best hurlers to have ever come out of the club. The highlight of his Plunketts playing career was scoring 9 points in the 1990 junior final against Southern Gaels. It should always be noted that he played for Westmeath and scored a point after coming on as a sub in their famous win against Galway in Loughrea in November 1986 in Division 1 of the National Hurling League.
The year following John-Joes death, club chairman Tony Donoghue, in the presence of John-Joes’ family, friends and clubmates, planted a sapling beside the club house in Robinstown to honour the club legend.
Years later and the tree that has grown and blossomed from this sapling is a symbolic representation of the progress the club has made from the youth structure and legacy that John-Joe left behind him. What many people don't know when they come to Robinstown is that they are standing in "Páirc Ui Loinshigh". The decision had been made at board level after John-Joes passing and was voted in to name the grounds after him, in his honour.
The club has not been without it's fair share of tragedy as the then serving chairman Ben Kelly in 2002 and senior player Paul "Podger" Daly in 2006 both died before their time. Like John-Joe, these two individuals were two great servants to the club. In 2007 plaques were unveiled at the club open day in honour of these three deceased club members.
The club develops
The glory of the 90s wasn’t all confined to the juvenile sides either – there was a second Junior championship won in 1990 when Plunketts beat Southern Gaels. It would be a good few years after this though before the club would win another senior trophy again, but it was still the beginning of the clubs most successful period to date.
There was an excellent year for the club in 1998 when there was a county championship win for the minors, a second intermediate title and a third junior title to add to the rapildly expanding list. Adding to that in the same year, the club won a county feile title and a Division 2 senior league title.
Perhaps though it's 2001 that should be seen as the best year ever to date for the club - there were wins for every age group in the club - the U12s,Minors, U21s and Intermediates all took the premier division honours, while the U14s captured the county feile and the U16s won the second division title in the same year. To complete the "clean sweep", the icing on the cake for the club was the capturing of their first Leinster Junior hurling title and indeed becoming the first Westmeath club to do so.
Plunketts beat Ballymahon Slashers from Longford, Crinkill from Offaly and Trinity Gaels from Dublin on route to the final. On Sunday 2nd December 2001 in Robinstown they played and beat Emeralds from Urlingford in Co Kilkenny for an historic victory for the club. Emeralds that day boasted future Kilkenny stars Derek Lyng and Aiden Fogarty in their side. It was swings and roundabouts then for the next few years until the club hit another purple patch winning the U14, U21 & Intermediate in 2004.
In recent years, the club has continued to maintain steady progress at underage level. In 2007 the U16s triumphed in the county final while in 2008 a fine U12 side rose to the top to claim the premier division by beating Casteltown-Geoghehan in a thrilling final in Clonkill.
The victorious U12 2008 Premier champions who beat Castletown-Geoghehan in a thriller
The U16s in 2008 once again reached the premier final, only to be beaten by Castletown-Geoghehan under floodlights in St Lomans pitch. Despite the disappointment at losing, there was a lot of pride at this particular team at reaching two successive finals in a row. This same team came back to capture the "A" division title in 2010 by comprehensively beating Lough Lene Gaels.
