Club History

Early Origins
Geraldines P. Moran GAA (also known as Foxrock Geraldines or just The Gers) have always been associated with the Cornelscourt/Foxrock/Cabinteely area. The Geraldines P. Moran club of today has its origins in the “ Cabinteely Geraldines” which was formed in 1886. The Secretary of the club was James Farrell. As Cabinteely was very much a small village the players were from a wide ranging area., such as Stillorgan, Glenamuck, Deansgrange and Dun Laoghaire. The Geraldines name was in honour of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Irish Patriot.

The First meeting of the Dublin County Board was on the 12th Dec 1886 and the “Gers” were represented by Patrick Cunniam of Cornelscourt. It wasn’t until 1888 that the Dublin Clubs were affiliated to the GAA.

The Gers made a good start to the very first Dublin County Championship when they reached the final. This was played at Benburbs GAA ground in Donnybrook (close to where the bus garage is now) and the opponents on the day were Feagh McHughs of Blackrock (a team made up of teachers and pupils of Blackrock College) McHughs won the game 2-4 to 2-1.

In the 1889 the Gers reached the final yet again but were beaten this time by Kickhams.

In the 1890’s the Gers lost a lot of players to a newly formed club called Dun Leary Independents. In addition to this there was a lot of infighting in the club on a major issue of the time. The club’s members had disagreements over the “Parnell Scandal” which led to splits in the club.

At this time there was a club which had been formed in Foxrock which was called “Foxrock Independents”. Due to the “Split” in Cabinteely Geraldines and the loss of players to the Dun Leary club the remaining players and committee members joined with the Foxrock Club and the new Club was called “Foxrock Geraldines”

In 1907 the New Club were runners up in the Dublin Intermediate League. Throughout the period of the 1900’s to the 1920’s this was a very productive time for the new club and the GAA in general. The number of teams and players increased and Cornelscourt was one of the main GAA grounds in the county. There were games played there on an almost weekly basis with teams from all over Dublin - crowds of over 3,000 were recorded in the newspapers of the time as attending these matches.

JJ Clare was very much involved in the running of the club and held various roles within the club and was very committed to the “GERS” throughout this period. He was also local county councillor. During this time the club had members who died in the First World War, War of Independence and the Civil War.

1930 – 1940’s
During the 1930 and 40’s the club continued to play and both adult and minor level

1950 - 1960
At the start of the 1950’s there was a major push on the Juvenile section of the club which was to prove a big success. This was vital to the progress the club made in the late 50 and 60’s when these players came through to play for the adult team.

The building of 58 houses in St Brigids Park provided an influx of new players which was a major boost to the club.

The adult team captured the Conlon Cup in 1960 on New Year ’s Day after a replay. This was the premier cup competition for Junior football in Dublin at the time.

The Chairman of the club was Fr Hurley who was the parish priest and was instrumental in securing the pitch at Cornelscourt for the Gers. A teacher from the local School Mr Patrick Hill was heavily involved in the running of the juvenile section of the club when both hurling and football was played.

1970 – 80’s
In the early 1970’s the club was finding it difficult to field teams at adult level as there were no players coming though the ranks and during this time there was no juvenile section of the club. The club then merged with a GAA club from Blackrock called Patrick Morans.    ( Patrick Moran Image )

The Patrick Moran club was primarily a hurling club and the name was changed to Geraldines Patrick Moran GAA.  Patrick Moran was a Roscommon man by birth, but livd in the Blackrock/Dun Laoghaire area, where he was instrumental in establishing the Labour Union now known as Mandate. Patrick Moran was an Irish Freedom Fighter and involved with the struggle organised by Michael Collins etc. He was actively involved in the deaths of British agents on the morning of Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920.
Arrested by british forces afterwards, he was executed on March 14 1921 in Mountjoy Gaol. The Irish National Union of Vintners' Grocers' & Allied Trades' Assistants, of which Moran had been an active member, called a half-day general strike on the morning of the executions and over 40,000 people gathered outside Mountjoy to pray for the six men who were hanged between 6am and 8pm. The townships of Bray, Dún Laoghaire, and Blackrock closed down, with the municipal flags flying at half-mast, on the day of his hanging, with Mass celebrated in all churches every hour from 6am to noon. All post office branches throughout Ireland stopped work.  Patrick Moran is one of the 'Forgotten Ten' - 10 patriots whose bodies still remained in unmarked graves. The 'Forgotten Ten' were exhumed in 2001 and received a State Funeral to Glasvenin Cemetery.  Nine of these men now lie inside the main gate of Glasnevin Cemetery.

The merger did not really benefit either team at the time - the club did play senior hurling for about 3 years after the merger and then concentrated on the football. During the 70’s and 80’s the club had a very good adult team competing and winning leagues and cups in the higher leagues of junior football. Because there were no Juvenile teams coming through this continued to cause problems in later years when fielding teams. The teams were made up of local players and “ lads from the country working in Dublin” it was often commented by opposing teams that the best time to play the Geraldines was on a bank holiday weekend because half the team would be gone back home.

1990’s
This saw the reintroduction of the Juvenile section when the club entered teams in the Wicklow leagues and proved to be very successful, winning a few cups along the way.

But this finished up around 1996 and the juvenile section was gone again.

2000’ to date
For the most part of the 2000’s despite a good start to the decade with a cup win for the adult team which was made up with a mixture of players who had played juvenile with the club and some of the older more seasoned players the whole decade was a struggle to keep the Senior team competing at a decent standard.

However,  ex members of the Adult Footballers (Ted McEnery, Paul O'Connor & Ger Moffatt) were instrumental in restarting the Juvenile section. This has resulted - after much hard work - in keeping teams involved all the way to Minor level and then feeding into the Adult team.
As a result, The Gers has for the last couple of years fielded two Adult Football teams and hopes to field an Adult Hurling team in 2021. Most importantly, we have seen our Adult team progress from Division 11 South to Division 6 in just 8 years. We are hopeful that when the Pandemic ends, this team can continue it's upward projectory.

With renewed growth at Underage level and with the appointment of Darren Magee as Club Games Development Officer, we introduced Juvenile Hurling and now have Hurling teams from U15's down.

Darren left to run the Westmeath GDO scheme but we were lucky enough to secure his brother Johnny as GDO. Johnny was in charge when we were forced by the Pandemic to go online for sessions.

With the U14's winning their Feile in 2013 and 2017 and with increasing numbers at all levels (especially the Academy where Johnny Magee has recorded record attendance for our club) the future looks better than ever.

With the pressure on the 'Home' pitch in Cornelscourt, our Adult players and older Juvenile teams have transferred to Ballyogan - just as well, as we have experienced another huge influx of both Juvenile girls and Adults - the Gaelic 4 Mothers & Others team is by far the best thing to happen our club in years.

It is great to see the pitch in Cornelscourt flooded with youngsters every Saturday morning - Come on down and join in!

UPDATE!

on 31 October 2021, Geraldines Firsts beat Crumlin in a hard fought game - by 1 point - to earn promotion to INTERMEDIATE STATUS!

The Future is bright. The Future is Black & Amber!