Dan Kirby, Michael Halton, John Kirby, John Cawley and Caimin Jones at Shannon Handball Alley. Photograph: Joe Buckley.
REVIVING handball in Shannon is hoped to restore a proud tradition.
Founded in 1971 by Martin Currams, Jim O’Dwyer, John Kirby and Fonsie Killeen, four handball diehards, Shannon Handball Club reached the pinnacle when winning the 60×30 All-Ireland senior club championships in 1972 and 1973, following it up with the 40×20 equivalent in 1972. The All-Ireland winning teams were led by the legendary Tuamgraney handballer Pat Kirby.
Floor damage and a decline in members led to the closure of the handball alley in 2017 which meant handball in Clare’s second largest town ceased to exist.
At the time of their All-Ireland and Munster success, the club played out of the open-air 60×30 four walled court attached to St Patrick’s Comprehensive School in Shannon.
By the late 1970s, the club had a home when it completed the construction of a 40×20 court on a site acquired on a 150-year lease from the Shannon Free Airport Development Company Ltd. Located behind Mary Immaculate Church at Boyne Park in Drumgeely, the court has hosted games from the 1984 and 1996 World Handball Championships for both men and women, the She’s Ace tournament plus several All-Ireland and Munster championships.
Co-founder of the club, John Kirby admitted the sight of seeing the alley become derelict prompted them into action. “Before we renovated it, we said two years ago that a lot of people were very interested in taking it over, it was derelict at the time, that was the big thing that got to us to get it back and going, it is hard to give away something that you fought for all your life”.
Club secretary, Caimin Jones recalled, “We looked and we saw a facility that was lying there, not being used, in a town that had won All-Ireland club success, the biggest setback to the club doing well was the quality and condition of the alley”.
Within two years, €32,000 has been secured in sponsorship from TJMB Consulting, Ei Electronics and Clare County Council while eight to ten individuals loaned €500 each. This has enabled repairs to make the court playable, a new wooden floor has been laid on the court, new lighting, heating, external ground works, painting and a refurbished viewing gallery.
Outline approval has also been secured for a sports capital grant to the tune of €55,000. Planning permission has also been granted for the construction of a ladies changing room.
An entire programme of works is estimated to cost €83,000, Treasurer Michael Halton calculated. “We have planning in for a ladies dressing room, we were reluctant to open it until we had that in place, we have grant approval for the value of €53,000 and it will take another €80,000 to get it to where we want it to be which will include automated and swipe entry, access control, proper CCTV monitoring, internet and some better lighting outside. We got the €33,000 from three primary sponsors but the grant conditions are that you have the approval before you spend any of it. We still need to spend money so it is not lost but getting the return will be a challenge”.
At its peak, the membership of the club never passed thirty, current Chairman John Cawley admitted. “Going back in the 1990s we had a nice few players around but it dwindled, we’d never have had more than twenty five paying members, it was used a lot by outside clubs because it was a fine facility, some of the top notch players used it a lot like Colin Crehan, Colin Corbett, Diarmaid Nash, lads from UL would come out that would be from other counties and staying in Limerick. Our own membership never crossed thirty”.
Cawley who operated the popular family restaurant and café, Shea Leez in Smithstown for sixteen years until its closure in November 2021 said the awareness about Shannon Handball Club is a barrier. “I came down from Sligo in 1984, I was ten years living in Shannon before I knew there was a handball alley, that will tell you. We started playing then. We put in new flooring in 2005, we got the glass backwall in around the time and fencing around the alley. We had a nice few members around the time, we kept playing”. He added, “For some reason it has always been very hard to draw members in here, there’s so many other activities around”.
Not enough locals are aware of the alley’s setting adjacent to St Senan’s NS. “I was talking to a lady here, she is working in Baker Hughes, she said she is there twenty five years and she only found out last year there is a handball alley in Shannon. It is hidden away, it is surrounded by trees, it is near the church but people aren’t going to mass anymore plus the trees have the place hidden,” Halton outlined. Activity has reduced in the vicinity with the field at the back of church formerly used as the camogie field, “That was the hurling pitch for us when we were in primary school. It was a fine spot back in the day in 1974 when we built it, at that point the town didn’t go beyond Aidan Park”.
Jones noted, “The reason for why the location was picked, the idea was Wolfe Tones were at the far end of the town, it was felt that because Shannon had stretched that if we got Wolfe Tones to build and we had this space here we could cover the whole town but of course Wolfe Tones never built”.
Wolfe Tones have yet to realise the benefit of handball for improving their fortunes on the hurling field, Cawley felt. “Back in the 2000s we gave keys out to the schools for them to use the alleys for PE but I don’t think the key was ever turned in the door by any of the schools. There’s lads going to St Caimins and the Comp from other clubs that will play competitions but very few. It is a pity that the GAA club doesn’t push it more for their hurlers, it is a no brainer because it is great for hurling”.
Schools are key to helping a club blossom, Kirby maintained. “The 70s was good because we got good young fellas from St Senan’s NS across the way, then when they went to The Comp they continued, they got success which kept them with us”. Knocking the alley at The Comp has been “a big loss”. “The younger you start the better, you can start at a later age but you won’t develop into the player you can”. Engagement is ongoing with St Caimin’s Community School regarding the use of the facility.
He added, “I left Tuamgraney in 1968 and threw my lot in here, we formed the club in 1969, it was formed in a car up at the top of Corrib Drive by Martin Currams, Fonsie Killeen, Jim O’Dwyer and myself. We stayed with it all the way, we had no alley, we formed our club and played our games out of Tuamgraney, we used to go home of a Sunday and have a tournament, then we started we fundraising, we got help off Caimin along the way. We had started this at one stage, then the wind blew it down and we had to start building all over again, it was very tough at the very beginning and money was very scarce but finally we got there”.
Halton who was one of the club’s most successful handballers acknowledged the role the alley at The Comp had in his development. “I was there from 1973 for five years, we came out of Munster every year and got to Croke Park for five years in a row, we never won anything in Croke Park”. He continued, “a big line of us to the backwall and puddles on the floor hoping the ball wouldn’t hit it where it might skid away. John Maughan and Fonsie Killeen would drive it all over the alley, we used to run out and try find the balls, we played as juveniles”.
Newmarket-on-Fergus’ Caimin who is a former Handball President cited the growth of the sport among women of all ages in fuelling his hope that the club can develop in Shannon. “Mothers and others has since grown up in a lot of clubs, they’ve gone to Croke Park playing handball and there has been a huge growth of the ladies competitions. Clare is completely the dominant county in Munster at underage and at ladies. When you look at membership and out the road to Newmarket-on-Fergus where last year we had 96 juveniles, it wasn’t the biggest club in the county. I’d be hoping we would get people. We need to attract women, we absolutely do. There has been a huge growth in women partaking in sport in the last two to three years, if we don’t encourage that then we will fall away”.
Cawley added, “it is an ideal place for women when they drop the kids to school to come up here for an hour in the morning, it is an ideal place for that”.
County handballers have benefited from the use of the alley, Caimin flagged. “We have huge numbers, county players and normal club members not playing inter-county want to have their games and the other courts weren’t always available for players so we let them in here, it was used a lot last year but we want to get our own members here”.
There is optimism among the dedicated members that Shannon Handball Club can grow. “The aim is to have a minimum of 20 juveniles for the coming season and a minimum of twenty adults, if we get that much then there will be activity here at night and once there is activity it will attract more people. There was little to no children in Clonmoney NS playing handball or hurling but there’s a huge amount now, the school has grown in hurling terms and there’s families there now that never hurled like the McGaherns, the Adams’, a lot of kids are hurling, footballing and playing handball there,” Scariff native Caimin stated.
According to Halton, “Short-term is to try get it established on a consistent footing so we have enough funding to keep it ticking over and it can develop from there, it is a great sport”. He continued, “if you look at the profile back in the 1970s, most people in the town would have been young, it is a mature population now, there isn’t as many kids, there’s still plenty of kids, we have five primary schools”.
Dan Kirby who is also from the iconic Tuamgraney handballing clan remarked that there are barriers to getting people involved. “I came from the big city of Tuamgraney, the home of handball. I’d be hopeful but it is hard to get young lads in when they are five or six years of age, who will come down and coach them, it is a serious job because you have to be vetted and all of that, you have to get the parents involved too”.
Parents are key for the sport to flourish, Caimin acknowledged. “You wouldn’t have had youths success in Newmarket-on-Fergus without attracting the parents, they sit, they help”. Danny added, “you have the old tradition in Newmarket-on-Fergus, here is new, Tuamgraney is 100 years old too and that is the difference, the old clubs keep going all the time. All we can do is the best we can, you would like to get the young lads playing because there will be no handball without them”.
A registration night for new and prospective members of Shannon Handball Club takes place this coming Monday (November 9th) and Wednesday (November 10th) from 18:30 to 20:00 at Shannon Handball Alley (V14 PC97).
