Éire Óg Craigavon GAC 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 ...

(GAA) club based in

Craigavon Craigavon ( ) is a town in north County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It was a planned settlement, begun in 1965, and named after the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland: James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon. It was intended to be the heart of ...

County Armagh County Armagh ( ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It is located in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and adjoins the southern shore of Lough Neagh. It borders t ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. It was founded in 1969 to promote

Gaelic games Gaelic games () are a set of sports played worldwide, though they are particularly popular in Ireland, where they originated. They include Gaelic football, hurling, Gaelic handball and rounders. Football and hurling, the most popular of the s ...

and Irish culture in the then new city of

. It currently plays

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 ...

in the

Armagh Armagh ( ; , , " Macha's height") is a city and the county town of County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Primates of All ...

leagues, the senior team is currently in the Junior division of the Armagh Senior Leagues and the Armagh Junior Football Championship. Previously the club fielded Senior Camogie and Ladies football teams. The club plays at Pinebank ().

History

Membership was small in the early days with only a few housing estates in the area and the first set of (second-hand) jerseys was received from a local club in

Portadown Portadown ( ) is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town is based on the River Bann in the north of the county, about southwest of Belfast. It is in the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area and had a population ...

. By 1970 six housing estates had been built in Craigavon and Éire Óg's membership and teams grew with the newly developed area. In 1970 Éire Óg entered the

All County Leagues, and with two new primary schools in the area, it began to field senior, under-12 and under-14 teams in the North Armagh Leagues. In 1972 the new Senior football strip of green, orange and amber was registered. By early 1973, when Lismore Comprehensive School was established in the community, Éire Óg GFC was fielding teams at all under age levels including U10s and Minors. During the 1980s the club flourished, and although it was a tumultuous time in Ireland's recent history Éire Óg started to move up the Divisions.In 1977 they experienced their first success when the U14 team won the N. Armagh football league.

Gaelic football

In 1985 Éire Óg had its first championship success winning the Junior Championship. The club moved up to the Intermediate Championship. Also during the 1980s Éire Óg won the U16 and U18 championships, and U12, U16 and Minor Leagues. In the 1990s the Senior team briefly appeared in Division 1 of the Armagh All-County League where it faced the top clubs of Armagh –

Crossmaglen Crossmaglen (, ) is a village and townland in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 1,610 in the 2011 Census and is the largest village in South Armagh. The village centre is the site of a large Police Service of Northern Ir ...

Clan na Gael Clan na Gael (CnG) (, ; "family of the Gaels") is an Irish republican organization, founded in the United States in the late 19th and 20th centuries, successor to the Fenian Brotherhood and a sister organization to the Irish Republican Bro ...

, Armagh Harps and Pearse Óg. In 2000 Éire Óg won the Armagh Intermediate Championship for the first time, defeating Collegeland 0-09 to 1-05.CLG Coiste Chontae Ard Mhacha, ''Clár Oifigiúil, Cluiche Ceannais, Craobh Idirmheánach Peile'' (IFC final programme), 6 October 2012 In 2011 Éire Óg experienced one of its most successful years to date. The club completed an All-County League Division 4 and Junior Championship double, then went on to represent Armagh in the Ulster Junior Football Championship, where they were beaten in the Ulster semi-final to eventual champions Derrytresk of Tyrone. The same year also brought success with the underage teams, notably an U16 All-County Title and an U12 All-County Title. A decade later in 2022, the club’s u15 squad won the Armagh féile shield and competed in the Ulster féile competition, eventually losing in the semifinals to John Mitchel's GAC Glenullin of Derry.

Honours

* Armagh Intermediate Football Championship (1) ** 2000 * Armagh Junior Football Championship (2) ** 1985, 2011 * Armagh All-County League Division 3 (1) ** 2000 * Armagh All-County League Division 4 (1) ** 2011

Notable players

* Ger Reid, member of Armagh's 2002 All-Ireland winning team

Camogie

1974 saw the formation of a ladies' sub-committee at Éire Óg, and the first

camogie Camogie ( ; ) is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women. Camogie is played by 100,000 women in Ireland and worldwide, largely among Irish communities. A variant of the game "hurling" (which is played by men only), it is organised ...

team in the club was formed. Teams were fielded in

Senior Camogie League and in both U11 and U13 leagues.

Culture

Éire Óg has won

and

Ulster Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

Scór titles and in 2005 its Irish music instrumental group represented the club at the All-Ireland Scor finals in County Kerry. Éire Óg continues to promote the

Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...

and

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 we ...

throughout the club and within the Craigavon Community.

Facilities

The first matches were played on a rugby field in Monbrief, Craigavon as there were no Gaelic football facilities in the area. By 1972

Craigavon Borough Council Craigavon Borough Council was a local council in counties Armagh, Down and Antrim, in Northern Ireland. It merged with Armagh City and District Council and Banbridge District Council in May 2015 under local government reorganisation in Nor ...

had built a Community Hall at Tullygally and Gaelic pitches in Taghnevan. This helped the club in that it provided a nearby venue for home games. A bus was purchased to bring the teams to games. In the 1970s 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. In 1999 the Department of Environment (DoE) agreed to sell the lease of the Éire Óg pitch; the Éire Óg club embarked on providing the state of the art, modern facilities that exist to this day.

References

External links

Club website

Éire Óg page
on Armagh GAA website {{DEFAULTSORT:Eire Og Craigavon Gaa Gaelic games clubs in County Armagh Gaelic football clubs in County Armagh Craigavon