This year Kilbride celebrated their Golden Jubilee, and they did it in style with festivities aplenty and promotion to Division Four of the league. Royal County chronicles the story. This year Kilbride celebrated their Golden Jubilee, and they did it in style with festivities aplenty and promotion to Division Four of the league. Regardless of how on field matters materialised, 1998 was always going to be a year of towering rejoice and joy for Kilbride GFC. This year marked the great club's Golden Jubilee and what a shining half century they had to look back on - for a club of such modest physical size, the good times flowed in disproportionate profusion. Indeed great times they were, and it was all about pride and pure talent: five senior championships in eight seasons, the first Meath club to travel to America, and much more. Not surprisingly, it was with lashings of commitment and panache with which the proud Kilbride gaels celebrated this most prestigious of birthdays. And the Kilbride players of 1998 didn't let the occasion down either. As if realising how important the season was, how symbolic and historic, they performed with copious grit and grace to gain the club promotion to Division Four of the League, and so build a solid foundation for the coming year and the many excitingly ahead in the next millennium when the hopes of the parish will rest on the shoulders of today's children. All in all, the Kilbride smile was a mile wide all year long, and the head was dreamy and nostalgic. Sometimes it's good to look back and see how things used to be. With 50 years having elapsed, perhaps it's a good time to do some of it now. How could anyone forget that great era? The sixties and early seventies were years of singing and celebration for Kilbride, but only after hard and uncompromising football had brought glorious victories to the rural south Meath club. The playing was always the number one pursuit in Kilbride not the glory, and that remains one of the club's unchallengeable tenets and strengths to this very day. But some twenty years earlier, Kilbride were only starting out on the long and winding journey that would see them become one of Ireland's most popular club teams. Victory, at that stage, was but a distant objective barely visible on the horizon of local dreams. Of more pressing concern then was procuring a set of jerseys! Kilbride was founded in Frank Cannon's dairy when Joe Murphy asked Larry Rooney and Paddy Marmiam if they were interested in getting a team together to compete with regional rivals Dunboyne, Kilcloon, Skryne and Dunshaughlin. They were, of course. Sean Rothwell remembers an early game in Skryne. It ended in a pulsating draw, one point each. Funds were raised to purchase a set of jerseys and so off to a sports shop on Camden Street midfielder and club secretary/treasurer Joe Murphy headed. Of course, the quality and colour of the jersey was dependant on the amount of money Joe had stuffed into his pocket, and because that wasn't too much the jerseys as a consequence were made of coarse wool and boasted black and blue hoops. Everybody agreed: they were uncomformable to wear. But they were Kilbride's new jerseys and that's what counted. Football boots were next on the agenda and again Joe was the cog at the centre of the acquisition. Thanks to a contact, they got these on credit, paying a weekly sum of a shilling or six pence until the debt was cleared. And so they were now ready, and no messing. The fifties were about growing up and learning, assessing the possibilities. Little success came Kilbride's way. Some members, however, were nurturing premature impatience. At the 1957 AGM, they were lobbying for the club to be disbanded and word must have got around, for outside the door of the meeting, like dogs looking up to a dinner table, were members of rival outfits hoping to pounce on Kilbride's more promising players should the doom and gloom merchants have their way. They didn't have their way and in hindsight they were happy not to, because what Kilbride achieved in the next fifteen years was beyond the expectations of even the most optimistic club member. In the club history, they call it the "Golden Era," when Kilbride were the toast of the country. Following a number of previous close attempts, the club won the Junior championship in 1960 and, two years later, overcame Walterstown to clinch the Intermediate crown. Their momentum was not to be checked. In 1964, only sixteen years after their official foundation, Kilbride won their first senior championship title, defeating Gaeil Colmcille in the final by 1-8 to 0-8. It was a wonderful victory, greeted with wondrous, wild celebrations, but it was only the beginning of a dominance that would render the Kilbride name immortal in the annals of Royal County sport. While they lost the final in 1966, they bounced back the following year with renewed determination to claim their second title. It was a great year for both club and county. Indeed both were distinctly intertwined. On the Meath team that defeated Cork in that year's All-Ireland final were six men from Kilbride - Pat Rooney, Pat Bruton, Murty Sullivan and the Quinn brothers, Martin, Gerry and the legendary Jack who the following year was named Meath Personality of the Year for his outstanding contribution to the game. All six travelled with Meath to Australia in 1968. When they came back for the following season's championship the sextet were hungry for utter supremacy with Kilbride. Their hunger was sated with three championship triumphs in succession, from '69 to '71. So many factors contributed to this remarkable success story. Great players, fierce loyalty, friendship. Their determination and desire to succeed was such that when allied to their innate talent, they became almost unbeatable. Such players as the Quinns, the Sullivans, the Reillys, the Brutons, the Clarkes, Sean Hickey, Pat Rooney, Jack O'Neill, Austin Reddin, Tommy Mahon, Val White, George Glynn, Mick Bohane, Tony Ryan, Patsy Farrell and Ray Murtagh all made massive contributions. Then there were the mentors and selectors who guided and advised these great players, John Marmiam, Kevin Sutton, Packie Lynch, David Colfer, Tommy Manning, Sean Rothwell and Kieran O'Farrell. Local publican Jack Sweeney also played his part during this period. The goalkeeper on the triumphant junior and intermediate team supplied 'spirit' in more ways than one, always motivating the players in the pre-match warm-ups and during games. "What Kilbride achieved in those days was marvellous for such a small parish," says current club secretary, Pat Donnellan. "It's just unfortunate that there was no All-Ireland club championship at the time because Kilbride would have undoubtedly captured one." Around the country, they still remember 'the great Quinn era'; they still remember Kilbride. In 1973, having fund-raised until they were fit to drop, the club organised a trip to America where three games and a lot of good times lay in store. The White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. The three games ended in victory, against the Carlow and Laois clubs in New York, and against the Philadelphia All Stars. The team had a great time and they remember it to this day. It was everything they deserved. An abundance of events, to many to mention, took place this year to celebrate the club's Golden Jubilee. A senior club tournament was organised between Kilbride, Dunboyne, Eire Og and Erins Isle. Kilbride beat their illustrious Carlow friends and then went on to play last year's beaten All-Ireland finalists from Dublin. In November the club's gala Golden Jubilee dinner dance was held in the Coolquay Lodge and was compered by Michael O'Muircheartaigh, with music supplied by Ray Murtagh. A great night was had by all. Having reached the AFL Division 5 final, a lot of hope abounds in Kilbride for next year. The good days of the sixties and seventies may be a long way away, but the Kilbride of 1999 will be pushovers for no team. The Kilbride playing panel 1998: Emmet Farrell, David Cully, Martin Cooke, Paudge Nicholl, Pat McDonagh, Dermot White, Dermot Finn, Robert Bruton, Kevin Quinn (Capt), Brian White, Conor Rennicks, Andrew Rennicks, Richard Bruton, Robbie Rooney, John Dollard, Eamon Clarke, Eugene McKeever, Ciaran Peden, Martin Nolan, Ollie Nolan, Cormac Murphy, Brian Gill. Tweet

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