Athlone GAA is the

Gaelic football Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kic ...

club in the town of

Athlone Athlone (; ) is a town on the border of County Roscommon and County Westmeath, Ireland. It is located on the River Shannon near the southern shore of Lough Ree. It is the second most populous town in the Midlands Region with a population of ...

County Westmeath "Noble above nobility" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Westmeath.svg , subdivision_type = Sovereign state, Country , subdivision_name = Republic of Ireland, Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Provinces o ...

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...

. The local

hurling Hurling ( ga, iománaíocht, ') is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of p ...

club is calle
Southern Gaels
Athlone is

Westmeath GAA The Westmeath County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) ( ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael Coiste Chontae na hIarmhí) or Westmeath GAA is one of the 32 county boards of the GAA in Ireland, and is responsible for Gaelic games in County ...

's most successful football club.

Club history

The club was founded in 1885 by

Irish National League The Irish National League (INL) was a nationalist political party in Ireland. It was founded on 17 October 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell as the successor to the Irish National Land League after this was suppressed. Whereas the Land League h ...

members, bringing GAA to Athlone. Athlone GAA are Westmeath's most successful club with 20 senior titles, the last of which was 1998. They achieved an unprecedented six-in-a-row between 1955 and 1960. 2018 represents their 7th time to qualify for Feile Peil na nOg, winning Div 2. The club is home to Westmeath's first footballing All-Star, Rory O'Connell. In 2017, the club bridged a 24-year gap by winning the County Minor Championship. Irish rugby international

Robbie Henshaw Robbie Henshaw (born 12 June 1993) is an Irish rugby union player. He plays primarily as a centre, although he can also play fullback. Henshaw currently plays for Irish provincial team Leinster in the United Rugby Championship, and internatio ...

played senior and underage football for Athlone. Athlone won the inaugural U20 Football championship in 2018, beating Castleday/Rosemount in the final. John Deacy, a defender on the 1965 Westmeath Senior Championship winning team, received his medal after a 55-year delay in October 2020.

Club infrastructure

The club caters for both football and hurling with the hurlers playing under th
Southern Gaels
banner. The club have three full size floodlit pitches, the 3rd pitch is dedicated to the memory of former player and coach, David Allen. The Athlone GAA also has its own bar and ballroom and is used by various local groups (

Tae Kwon Do ''Taekwondo'', ''Tae Kwon Do'' or ''Taekwon-Do'' (; ko, 태권도/跆拳道 ) is a Korean martial arts, Korean form of martial arts involving punching and kicking techniques, with emphasis on head-height kicks, spinning jump kicks, and fast k ...

Irish traditional music Irish traditional music (also known as Irish trad, Irish folk music, and other variants) is a genre of folk music that developed in Ireland. In ''A History of Irish Music'' (1905), W. H. Grattan Flood wrote that, in Gaelic Ireland, there w ...

Line Dancing A line dance is a choreographed dance in which a group of people dance along to a repeating sequence of steps while arranged in one or more lines or rows. These lines usually face all in the same direction, or less commonly face each other.Knight ...

, ...).

Notable players

* Noel Mulligan * Alan Gaughan * John Egan *

Ray Connellan Ray Connellan (born 29 June 1994) is an Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name ...

* Matt Scally *

Rory O'Connell Rory O'Connell is a former Gaelic footballer from Athlone, County Westmeath. He was Westmeath's first Football All Stars winner in 2001. He was also part of the Westmeath team that won the county's first Leinster Senior Football Championship ...

* Fergal Murray * Aidan Collins *

* John Connellan * James Finlass * Paul Mullan

Notable managers

* Liam McHale

Club honours

Westmeath Senior Football Championship The Westmeath Senior Football Championship is an annual Gaelic Athletic Association competition organised by Westmeath GAA between the top Gaelic football clubs in County Westmeath. The winner of the Westmeath Championship qualifies to repre ...

s (20) ** 1905, 1929 (Army) 1947, 1949, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1965, 1971, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1982, 1984, 1988, 1991, 1998. *

Westmeath Intermediate Football Championship Westmeath Intermediate Football Championship is an annual Gaelic Athletic Association competition organised by Westmeath GAA between Gaelic football clubs in County Westmeath. The winner of the competition qualifies to represent the county in ...

s (1) ** 2015 *

Leinster Intermediate Club Football Championship The Leinster Intermediate Club Football Championship is an annual Gaelic football tournament played between the Intermediate football champions of the 12 counties of Leinster. The winners will represent the province in the semi-final of the All ...

** Runners-Up 2015 * Westmeath Junior Football Championships (8) ** 1916, 1921, 1945, 1954, 1969, 1975, 1976, 1977. * Westmeath Under 21 Football Championships (11) ** 1963, 1971, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1996, 2005, 2013 * Westmeath Under 20 Football Championships (1) ** 2018 * Westmeath Minor Football Championships (12) ** 1949, 1950, 1952, 1954, 1969, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1984, 1986, 1993, 2017. * Westmeath Under-17 Football Championships (5) ** 1963, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980. *Westmeath Under-16 Football Championships (10) ** 1967, 1968, 1970, 1973, 1976, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1991. * Westmeath Under-14 Football Championships (10) ** 1946, 1947, 1966, 1969, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1981, 1989, 2011. * Westmeath Under-12 Football Championships (5) ** 1980, 1981, 1999, 2000, 2002. * Feis Cup Senior Football (10) ** 1956, 1957, 1960, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1977, 1993. * Westmeath Senior 'B' Football Championships (1) ** 1985 * Féile na nÓg ** 1985 (Cork) 1997, 1998, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2018 (Div 2) * Ladies Under-12 Football Championship (1) ** 1999

Proposed US tour and legal dispute

Following Athlone GAA's winning of the Westmeath County Championship in 1984, it was decided to send the team to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1985. More than £11,000 was collected quickly and put on a bank account set up for the occasion. A dispute over control of the trip's finances between executive committee members and the tour committee led to a lengthy legal dispute. In 1994, the case went to the

Supreme Court of Ireland , image = Coat of arms of Ireland.svg , imagesize = 120px , alt = , caption = Coat of Arms of Ireland , image2 = Four Courts, Dublin 2014-09-13.jpg , imagesize2 = , alt2 ...

and was still ongoing in 2001.

References

External links

Official Athlone GAA Club website
{{Athlone Gaelic games clubs in County Westmeath Sport in Athlone