St Joseph's Gaelic Football Club was a

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 in

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county of the Republic of Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is the northernmost county of Ireland. The county mostly borders Northern Ireland, sharing only a small b ...

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 ...

History

The club was formed in 1963 from the merger of Aodh Ruadh, based in

Ballyshannon Ballyshannon () is a town in County Donegal, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is located at the southern end of the county where the N3 road (Ireland), N3 from Dublin ends and the N15 road (Ireland), N15 crosses the River Erne. The town was inc ...

, and Réalt na Mara, based in

Bundoran Bundoran () is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. The town is located near the N15 road near Ballyshannon, and is the most southerly town in Donegal. The town is a tourist seaside resort, and tourism has been at the heart of the local economy s ...

Brian McEniff Brian McEniff (born 1 December 1942) is a former Gaelic football player, manager and administrator. McEniff played as a wing-back for the St Joseph's combination of clubs from Bundoran and Ballyshannon. He won seven Donegal Senior Football ...

explained in 2013 that St Joseph's was formed when the clubs in the two towns "were doing rather poorly. In spite of the great rivalry, they came together. The bonding factor was the De La Salle College in the upper part of our parish... All of the boys — except myself, I went to a boarding school in Monaghan — were from De La Salle. It was a natural transition". St Joseph's won an unofficial

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 ...

against St John's in

Irvinestown Irvinestown is a town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. At the 2021 census it had a population of 2,325 people. The most notable buildings are Necarne Castle, formerly known as Castle Irvine, and Castle Archdale. Irvinestown is situated ...

in 1966, reached the first official final in 1968 and won the official tournament in 1975; they remained the only Donegal club to do so until 2018 when

Gaoth Dobhair Gweedore ( , officially known by its Irish language name, ) is a Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) district, and parish, located on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of County Donegal in the north-west of Ireland. It stretches some from Glasserchoo ...

won Ulster. The clubs separated in 1977.

Notable players

* Alan Kane — 1972 and 1974 Ulster SFC winning player *

— 1992 All-Ireland SFC winning

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

Pauric McShea Pauric McShea is an Irish Gaelic football pundit and former player for Aodh Ruadh and the Donegal county team. He works as a match analyst for Ocean FM. He also writes a weekly column, "McShea's Say", for the '' Donegal Post''. He played at ...

— 1972 and 1974 Ulster SFC winning player

Honours

: 1975 *

Donegal Senior Football Championship The Donegal Senior Football Championship (abbreviated as Donegal SFC) is an annual football competition organised by Donegal GAA and contested by the highest-level clubs, to determine the best team in County Donegal. Since 2016, it has been know ...

: 1965, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976 * Donegal Senior Football League: 4 * Gold Flake Cup: 1

References

Former Gaelic Athletic Association clubs in County Donegal Gaelic football clubs in County Donegal {{Ulster-GAA-club-stub