Magheracloone Mitchells is a

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sports, amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional Irish sports o ...

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

club from the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

Magheracloone Magheracloone is a parish in south County Monaghan. Its name comes from the Irish which means 'plain of meadow'. A generally hilly parish; its name is derived from its most important place in ancient times; a flat area of land in the townland of ...

County Monaghan County Monaghan ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is part of Border Region, Border strategic planning area of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The team participate in the

Monaghan Senior Football Championship The Monaghan Senior Football Championship is an annual Gaelic football competition contested by Monaghan GAA clubs. The Monaghan GAA, Monaghan County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association has organised it since 1888. Scotstown GAA, Scotstown ...

. The Magheracloone Mitchells GAA club pitch is situated on the main Carrickmacross-Kingscourt Road. On the site there are two pitches (the main pitch and a training pitch), modern changing rooms as well as a community centre and a handball alley. Magheracloone GFC 1965

History

2018 collapse

On Monday 24 September 2018, a disused mine collapsed in the area where the club is located. An exclusion zone was set up, with the club confirming that its pitch was completely out of bounds. Social media images displayed enormous cracks in the clubhouse and the surface of the club's pitch. The club announcement stated: "Magheracloone GFC pitches, Community Centre, car park etc have been closed for the foreseeable future due to a serious incident overnight. Nobody is to enter the grounds under any circumstances." By the following day two fresh sinkholes had emerged close to the pitch, with a preliminary inspection by geologists revealing a basin of depression with a diameter of about 120 metres had been found near the GAA Clubhouse and community buildings and that two crown holes with a width of about 8 metres had come about due to settlement within that basin. Within weeks of the disaster, Magheracloone had been relegated from the

. In April 2020, a new six-metre crown hole in a nearby mine was discovered following an aerial survey. It took until August 2022 for the club to be able to return to play at its ground. Clubs in Cavan, Meath and Louth supported Magheracloone during this period.

Notable players

Three

Monaghan Monaghan ( ; ) is the county town of County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It also provides the name of its Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish and Monaghan (barony), Monaghan barony. The population of the town as of the 2022 cen ...

team members are also inter-county Gaelic footballers; Tomás Freeman, Damien Freeman (brother of Tomás),

Shane Duffy Shane Patrick Michael Duffy (born 1 January 1992) is an Irish professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for club Norwich City and the Republic of Ireland national team. Duffy came through the youth academy at Everton, where he comp ...

and Gavin Doogan. Magheracloone Mitchells won their first

in 2004. However, they were knocked out of that year's

Ulster Senior Club Football Championship The Ulster Senior Club Football Championship is an annual Gaelic football tournament organised by Ulster GAA. It is played between the Senior championship winners from each of the nine counties of Ulster. The competition was first held in 1968 an ...

by Cavan Gaels at the quarter-final stage.

Honours

(1) ** 2004 * Monaghan Intermediate Football Championship (2) ** 2019, 2024 *

Ulster Intermediate Club Football Championship The Ulster Intermediate Club Football Championship is an annual Gaelic football competition organised by Ulster GAA. It is played between the Intermediate championship winners from each of the nine counties of Ulster. The competition has a straig ...

(1) ** 2019

References

External links

Official Magheracloone GAA Club website
Gaelic football clubs in County Monaghan Gaelic games clubs in County Monaghan {{Ulster-GAA-club-stub