This Wednesday September 24th will see a special celebration for Raheny Shamrock Athletic Club as the club celebrates the 60th anniversary of female memberships.
It is very hard to believe that in 1960’s Ireland, the then Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. John Charles McQuaid forbade women from taking part in sport.
However, Raheny Shamrock became the first member of the National Athletics and Cycling Association (NACA) to accept female members.
Paul O’Connor proposed to the Raheny Shamrock AC committee in March 1964 to form a women’s section. Paul was coach of the UCD women’s athletics team. As they were a university and not a club, athletics was taking place in UCD. However, those women had no sport to compete in outside the academic year.
Paul is a driving force behind this special engagement, which has been delayed due to unforeseen circumstances from its actual anniversary.
Just three years later, the first ever Irish women’s cross country team competed in the World Championship in Chepstow.
The team was 50% comprised of Raheny Shamrock A.C members, Siobhan Lynch, Ursula Kennedy and Ann Keating. Paul explained the beginnings of the Raheny Shamrock women’s section in this piece for the 50th anniversary magazine.
Paul will be in attendance on Wednesday with one of the club’s founding members our club president Paddy Noonan. The function gets underway at 2pm in the clubhouse and we look forward to welcoming so many friends to our new clubhouse.
