Senior Football Honours 1948 SFC 1985 IFC 1938 JFC 1979 JFC 2001 JFC Senior Hurling Honours 1932 JHC 1951 JHC 1967 JHC 1974 JHC South Antrim Honours 1979 Beringer Cup 1974 Martin Cup 1982 Martin Cup 1983 Martin Cup 1989 Martin Cup Minor and Juvenile Honours 1960 Minor C'ship 1981 Minor C'ship 1983 Butler Cup

Introduction At the moment we are compiling a brief history of Eire Og Derrriaghy. Founded in 1932, Eire Og have a Senior Championship win in 1948 to their name, as well as Intermediate and Junior titles. This history will hopefully honour some of the Ogs' great teams and personalities down the years. As well as this brief history, we have an Archive page, where you can see at a glance how the Ogs performed in a given year. There are also lists of all our honours - Senior, South Antrim and Juvenile - as well as reports on all our Championship winning sides. To access these, simply click on the links above. The Early Years - 1932 to 1949 Eire Og was founded in 1932 by Dan Charlton, Joe Reid and Sean Stinson. Joe Reid Joe Reid owned a shoe shop on the Springfield Road. His daughter, Ann, started the Ann Reid School of Irish Dancing and performed at all the social functions run by the Eire Og club. Joe played both football and hurling for the Ogs for many years. He was a touch player and a great clubman. His son also played for Eire Og as goalkeeper and also played a few games for the Antrim Senior football team. Sean Stinson Sean Stinson was a salesman in one of the large department stores in the city of Belfast. He originally came from the Ahoghill/Moneyglass/Portglenone locality. He held various positions on the South Antrim and County boards over the years. In later life he purchased a local bar at Crosskeys, Ahoghill. The amalgamated minor football County Antrim Championship winning team was named after him. Dan Charlton Dan Charlton came from the Ormeau Road district of Belfast. He worked for O'Connor's Wholesale Grocers before opening his own wholesale business. He opened two confectionery shops one on the the Donegall Road and the other on the Andersonstown Road, which he owned until he retired. The Andersonstown shop was near St Agnes Drive and is now a barber's shop. Dan originally played for Ardoyne GAC, but being more interested in hurling, he helped found Eire Og GAC. Eire Og’s Team for the first ever Hurling match in 1932 at Corrigan Park against Davitt's: Joe Reid Dan Charlton (deceased) W Bennett W Stevenson Matt Connelly Albert Spotswood (deceased) Harry Devlin Louis Corbett Sean McCollum Hugh O’Brien John McGuinness Tom Hamilton Jimmy (Midge) Hasty Joey McTaggart J Doherty John McKenna Eire Og wore shirts with green and white bars in this match. Joe Reid, Midge Hasty, Dan Charlton and Hugh O’Brien were responsible for organising the match. The club's original colours were green, white and orange for the first two years, but they were changed to a red jersey with a broad white band because there was a clash of colours with Davitts as well as being similar to other clubs. The Ogs won the Junior Hurling League(beating Tir na nOg 6-1 to 4-0) and Junior Hurling Championship in their first year as a team. In 1934 Eire Og formed the All County Hurling League, despite still being a South Antrim side - Sarsfields were the only other South Antrim side in it. In 1935 Eire Og had their first County hurler, Harry Devlin. In 1938 Harry was joined by fellow Ogs Tommy Rice and Peter McGarvey on the Antrim hurling team that defeated Galway 6-03 to 6-02 at the opening of the old Cusack Stand. It wasn't until 1938 that Eire Og won their first football honours when they won the Junior Championship, Junior League and Ben Madigan Cup. In 1947 Eire Og won the Junior Football League, but 16 years after its creation in 1932 Eire Og won its one and, so far, only Senior Football Championship in 1948 when we beat favourites St John’s 2-2 to 1-4 at Corrigan Park. It was well deserved as Eire Og had already knocked out the holders, O’Connell’s, in the semi-final winning quite comfortably 1-7 to 1-3, despite a late comeback by O’Connell’s. The winning Ogs team was a very young team - only five of them being over 21 years of age. 1950’s & 1960’s In 1951 Eire Og won the Junior Hurling Championship again, beating Glenariff 4-07 to 1-06 in the final. 1951 was also the last year that Antrim won the Ulster Football Championship. Eire Og had 5 representatives in the team - Jimmy Roe, Brian O'Kane, Peter O'Hara and Donagh Forde all started, while David O'Kane was one of the substitutes. Since then Eire Og's glory days have faded somewhat, so too, funnily enough so have Antrim's!! 1960 saw the Ogs' first Minor Football Championship when they beat Glenravel 1-06 to 1-03, and the following year also won the Junior Football Supplementary League. Sean Rice played football for Antrim in 1963 and 1964, during which time he scored four goals and 2 points against Derry, all from play, which at the time was the second highest scoring tally for a single game - it may well still be! In 1967 Eire Og won the Junior Hurling Championship again. 1970’s The mid 1970’s began what were to be a very successful 15 years or so for the Ogs. In 1974 we won the Martin Cup for the first time. Another Junior Hurling Championship was also added in 1974 and then in 1978 we won the ACFL Division 3 title, but the following year saw the Junior Championship and the Beringer Cup came to Eire Og. The Under 12 Hurlers also won their league in 1979. 1980’s Building on the success of the past few years, the Ogs saw some good Minors coming through the ranks, winning the Minor Championship in 1981 and the Butler Cup in 1983. It was this new, young crop of players who helped Eire Og win back to back Martin Cups in 1982 and 1983, before going on to win the Intermediate Championship in 1985. The Og’s had another batch of good Minors in 1989 who won the Division 2 league two years running, and provided the bulk of the 1989 Martin Cup and the 1989 and 1990 Division 2 Senior Reserve league winning teams. Also, during the 1980's, Eire Og organised and ran an annual football competition in Casement Park which attracted several top teams from within Antrim as well as outside it. Greg Blaney, Down legend, was one of the many top players to participate in the tournament, which the Ogs actually won themselves in 1984 when they amalgamated with St Agnes. 1990’s Despite the good Minor teams of the 1980’s, there were not that many underage players now coming through to the senior ranks. This prompted a merger in 1990 with St Anne’s Derriaghy, who had many underage players but little to offer them as regards senior football. The Ogs were renamed Eire Og Doire Agaidh, and began, what has proved to be, a very successful underage coaching programme. In 1990 the Under 12 footballers won Division 2, in 1994 the Under 12 hurlers won Division 2, while the Under 16 and Minor footballers both finished second in their leagues, and in 1999 the Og’s Under 14’s won both the football and hurling leagues. The senior team, meanwhile, lost the 1990 Division 2 title to St Agnes in a play off, just failing to win promotion to Division 1, while the Senior Reserve team again won their league. Unfortunately that was to be the beginning of the end for that particular team. The lack of Minors coming through, old players hanging up their boots and the loss of some players to other teams, saw Eire Og slip from 2nd in Division 2 in 1990 and 3rd in 1991 to eventual relegation in 1994 to Division 3, despite reaching the Championship semi-final in the same year. The 1990’s were to prove to be very frustrating. After relegation, Eire Og finished as league runners up in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999, always failing to gain promotion by one place. Even the Martin Cup provided disappointment as we lost the final in 1994 despite leading by three points at the end of the first half. In 1998 Eire Og played in Division 4, due to a reorganisation of the leagues to accommodate 1st Division reserve teams, and in 2001 the Og’s played in Division 5 for the same reason. 2000 and beyond... At last Eire Og’s fortunes changed as the youth policy, started in the 1990’s, began to really benefit the senior team. There was now a young, fit and eager team, a lot of whom had come through every age group together. League honours still eluded us, finishing 3rd in 2000 and 2nd by a point in 2001, but in 2001 the Ogs won the Junior Championship and the Under 17 side became Sevens Champions too. Provincial competition followed, as Eire Og were quarter-finalists in the Ulster Junior Club Championship and the Ulster Junior Sevens Competition. 2002 saw success for our Under 8 team in football Blitz competition. Hopefully the future is bright for the Og’s! 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