Nil Desperandum F.C. was a sporting club in
Cork
Cork or CORK may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
***Wine cork
Places Ireland
* Cork (city)
** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
, Ireland. When it was founded it was mainly a
rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Masters Rugby League
*** Mod league
*** Rugby league nines
*** Rugby league sevens
*** Touch (sport)
*** Wheelchair rugby league
** Rugby union: 1 ...
club. In 1888, after "some years" of playing rugby "Nils", as they were known, played their first
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 ...
game.
Within a few years Nils was one of the strongest
Gaelic Athletic Association
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional ...
clubs in Cork. It had a headquarters on Marlboro' Street and was largely represented by West Cork men who had come to the city to work.
After winning the
Cork Senior Football Championship in 1894, Nils went on to represent Cork in the controversial
All-Ireland Senior Football Championship of
1894
Events January–March
* January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire.
* January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United S ...
.
By the late 1920s the club was almost defunct and at the 1929 AGM the chairman "exhorted every member present both individually and collectively to strive earnestly for the welfare of the club whose motto was 'Nil Desperandum' and bring all possible honors to the club and to the county this year. He stressed the fact that Gaelic Football was in a deplorable state in the city at the present time, and teams of long connection with the GAA like Nils and
Lees, found it almost impossible to put a single senior team on the field when a couple of years back they could put senior, intermediate and junior teams. There was certainly work for an organiser here to organise Gaelic football in Cork City and help to bring it back to the high position in the GAA which it held some years back."
History
Honours
*
Cork Senior Football Championships: 6
** 1894, 1901, 1915, 1917, 1924, 1925
*
Cork Junior Football Championship
The Cork Junior A Football Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the Co-Op Superstores Cork Junior A Football Championship and abbreviated to the Cork JAFC) is an annual Gaelic football competition organised by the Cork County Board of ...
s: 7
** 1902, 1903, 1904, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915,
Famous players
*
Tom Irwin
*
Seán Óg Murphy
*
Jack Young
*
Dick Fitzgerald
References
Gaelic games clubs in County Cork
Gaelic football clubs in County Cork
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