A Welcome Message from Martin Kenny Chairman of Transport Gaels
Céad Míle Fáilte a Cháirde,
It gives me great pleasure as Chairman of CIE / Transport Gaels GAA Club to welcome you to our website. This is one of the most enjoyable and satisfying projects our club has undertaken in recent times.
Many old photographs were sourced depicting the present times and times past and are displayed in our photo gallery. We would like to record for posterity the outstanding achievements of all CIE Clubs, in various units of the Company nationwide. There have of course been lows and disappointments but when success came it was greatly deserved...
Martin Kenny, Chairman
Celebrating 125 years of Gaelic Games in Irish Transport 1886-2011
Poet Patrick Kavanagh said the history of Ireland would be incomplete if the writer ignored the Gaelic Athletic Association.
Likewise, any attempt to compile a history of the Gaelic Athletic Association would be far from complete if C. I. E. clubs were omitted. The G. A. A. has always had strong ties with a body that has done more than any other to ensure the mass movement of people across the island, many of them in transit to games.
The legendry tales of night trains travelling long distances to Croke Park from places such as Kerry, and the ongoing practise of so many teams and their supporters returning home by bus and train, victorious with silverware, underline the long lasting ties between C. I. E. and the G. A. A. In 1885, the year after the Association was founded; over 15,000 people attended a G. A. A. competition in Tralee.
The teams and their supporters were able to travel to more distant places because the century provided a new mode of transport, the railway, and its existence had a lot to do with the development of sport. In 1905, the Great Southern and Western and Railway presented the G. A. A. with two shields for competition between provincial teams in hurling and football. In 1926, the railway company donated two perpetual cups, known as the railway cups, to be presented to the winners of the Inter-Provincial hurling and football championships. Transport workers have been involved in the promotion of our games since 1886, almost as far back as the inception of the Association itself, and many of the present work-force still turns to Gaelic Games as an outlet for sporting and social activities.
To mark the 125th of the first transport club, Henry Grattan G. F. C. founded by railway workers at the ‘Inchicore Works’ in 1886, the G. A. A. has given Transport Gaels G. A. A. club permission to play football, hurling and camogie matches in Croke Park on Saturday 8th October 2011. Once permission was granted we, the organising committee, decided that we would use this opportunity to raise funds for two Irish charities, namely the Alzheimer’s society and Special Olympics Ireland. Former Donegal footballer Martin McHugh and his media colleagues have agreed to play a Jimmy Deenihan T. D. all party Dail selection in a half hour football match. Our 125th Anniversary games in Croke on Saturday 8th October 2011 is a once in a lifetime opportunity to promote not just our G. A. A. clubs but the CIE Group and its workforce in a very positive manner.
