Éire Óg Craigavon GAA

=Foundation=

GAA Club based in Craigavon, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1969 to promote Irish culture in the then new city of Craigavon.

History

The first matches were played in a used Rugby field in Monbrief, Craigavon and there was no gaelic football facilities in the area. Membership was small in the early days with only several main estates in the area and the 1st set of 2nd hand jerseys was received from a local club in Lurgan.

By 1970 there were six estates built in Craigavon and Éire Óg's membership and teams grew with the newly developed area. In 1970 they entered the County Armagh all County Leagues and with 2 new primary schools began to field a team and U12 and U14 in the North Armagh league.

By 1972 Craigavon Borough Council had built a Community Hall at Tullygally and at Gaelic pitches in Taghenavan. This helped the club in that they were close by to playing home games. A bus was purchased at this time to bring the teams to games. Also at this time the new Senior football strip of green, orange and amber was registered.

By the time of early 1973 when Lismore Comprehensive School, Craigavon was established in the community, Éire Óg GFC was fielding teams at all under age levels – U10s – Minors.

1974 seen the formation of a ladies sub-committee at Éire Óg and the first Camogie team in the club was formed. Teams were fielded in County Armagh Senior Camogie league and in both U11 and U13 leagues.

The club had erected goal posts in a field between Carrigart and Pinebank housing estates and in 1979 was in a position to level out and develop this land to a full pitch for its football and camogie teams.

During the 1980’s that the club took off and although it was a tumultuous time in Ireland’s recent history Éire Óg started to move up the Divisions and in 1985 had its first championship success winning the Junior Championship. It was in this period that the club were runners up in Intermediate Championship also and during the 80’s Éire Óg won the U16 and U18 championships and U12/U16 and Minor Leagues.

In the 1990’s the Senior team reached, in one particular year, the Premier Division of the Armagh County League were it faced the top clubs of Armagh – Crossmaglen, Clan Na Gael, Armagh Harps, Pearse Og.

In 1999 the then Department Of Environment (D.O.E) agreed to sell the lease of the Éire Óg pitch, the Éire Óg club embarked on providing a state of the art, modern facilities that exist to this day.

Éire Óg has won County Armagh and Ulster titles and in 2005 its Irish music Instrumental group represented the club at the All-Ireland Scor finals in Co. Kerry. Éire Óg continues to promote Irish Language, Comhltas and Ceol throughout the club and within the Craigavon Community.