Johnny Corcoran: The man who set the foundations for Castleknock GAA club

Johnny Corcoran is a truly remarkable character. From Finglas to Castleknock, via Leixlip, he has immersed himself in the GAA. Johnny is a proud Erin’s Isle man who was involved in the iconic Dublin squad of the 70s, commonly known as ‘Heffo’s Army’.

His enthusiasm for the game stemmed from his love for Erin’s Isle. There was a fantastic mix of characters within the club in the early 70s. “Every county in Ireland was represented where we lived,” recalls a nostalgic Johnny. Finglas East has produced many notable Dublin GAA stalwarts. John Costello, Paddy Canning, and Mick Seavers, who are all vital county board members, lived in the same neighbourhood as Johnny.

It is fair to say that Heffo encouraged the love Johnny had developed for the GAA. Johnny is adamant that you should always play for your local club. He married and moved to Leixlip where he joined his local GAA club, engulfing himself within the local community. When he moved to Castleknock in 1996, it was no different. The only challenge was that there was no GAA club in his local area to join. Johnny knew this issue must be addressed.

St Patrick’s Day 1998: Johnny’s hometown club Erin’s Isle lose out to Corofin by five points in the All Ireland Football Club Championship. However, thoughts turned from Erin’s Isle of Finglas to a potential new club in Castleknock. Johnny raised the thought with the late John Egan, who was county chairman at the time. John Egan attended Beneavin College in Finglas, a school with a strong GAA ethos. He was fully supportive of Johnny’s plans. John Costello, county secretary at the time, also committed to supporting the venture of creating a GAA club in Castleknock.

Johnny explains why he wanted to start a new club. “The love of the game is what drove us to start something from scratch. It’s all about the promotion of hurling and football. I saw, first-hand, in Finglas East and Leixlip what a GAA club can do for the area. The community spirit it brings into the place is amazing. Between 1985 and 1998, there were an awful lot of houses built in Castleknock; the population exploded.

We came in at the right time. The Celtic Tiger era came after so even more houses appeared then. We were able to capitalise on that; there was a bit of luck involved too.”

Johnny initially got the plan in motion. Fergus Hamill, a friend of Johnny’s and a teacher in Castleknock, became involved after John Egan had mentioned it to the Monaghan native. Fergus, at first, was slightly apprehensive about the idea. He eventually became the first chairman of the club. Johnny, although a humble man, was focused, driven, and extremely intent on succeeding with the Castleknock GAA project.

“You have to be on the edge all of the time. I was going around telling people white lies. I asked Fergus would he come to a meeting if we got a group of people involved. But at the time I had no one else, there was only me.”

Johnny was cunning in how he went about organising support. His resilience paid off in the form of luck on many occasions. “My third son, Rory, was in Francis Xavier School and there was a man there, John O’Brien, who would take the class out a few evenings every week and play football in the field under the lights from the shopping centre. The lights were shining onto the school and that’s how they first started with GAA.”

John O’Brien didn’t have a big GAA background but his enthusiasm was what drew Johnny to him. John agreed to support the plan of creating a Castleknock GAA team. That group of school children formed the first juvenile team for the club at under 10 level.

John was part of a small group that held their first meeting upstairs in Myos pub, in Castleknock. Another man associated with Erin’s Isle, John Conway, was an integral part of that meeting. He was good friends with John Costello, as they grew up together. Plans were coming together for Castleknock GAA club. Suddenly, they had a chairman and secretary agreed on, Fergus Hamill and John Conway, respectively. It became a bit of an obsession for Johnny as he put all of his spare time into the project. But that’s what was needed.

The group agreed to meet once a week, in order to build up regularity. From the outset, they organised professional meetings; minutes of the meetings were taken. Although they were not officially a club yet, they were doing things right.

“From the start we could see Castleknock was a great name. Everyone knows Castleknock as a nice area which would be good for sponsorship. We were putting Castleknock on the map. It was never associated with the GAA, until we came along.”

“The essence of the GAA is localism. You want local rivalry. The area around Castleknock is a hotbed for the GAA. If you come up the Navan Road, there is a GAA club in every parish. You have St Finbarrs, Oliver Plunketts, St Brigids, and if you keep travelling up that road you’re met with a club in Clonee and a club in Dunboyne. They may be in a bordering county but they’re still the next parishes.

If you go west, then you’ve now got Castleknock, St Peregrines, Tyrrelstown, Westmanstown Gaels, Lucan Sarsfields, and Confey.”

Castleknock also had a struggle competing for grounds. In April and September of 1998, there was a desperate rush to obtain grounds to play on. They received a green in a housing estate to use as a juvenile pitch.

“We could only put up temporary posts as the local residents didn’t want us using it as a permanent pitch. We were happy to agree to that. We knew beggars couldn’t be choosers. We went up every Saturday morning and dragged steal posts up. We had to put them up and take them down during the week too if there was a match. It was hard going but it was great fun.”

Their home ground was affectionately known as Tir Na nOg. In early July of that year, before official approval was granted, they had begun training. Twenty five children showed up for their first session on a beautifully sunny Saturday morning. A week later, they were officially granted approval.

Castleknock entered three juvenile teams at under 9, under 10, and under 11. Approval was needed by July in order for all paperwork to be submitted and approved for the start of the leagues in September. However, there were still some stumbling blocks along the way.

“If we hadn’t of been approved when we were, just before the deadline, we may have folded,” admits Johnny. 

He goes on to say, “at certain stages, we were very worried because the county board only meet once a month. We were working hourly. Big wheels move slowly. However, it all worked out in the end. We even entered an adult football team for the start of the season. So now we had to search for an adult pitch.”

The county council provided Castleknock with a pitch in Porterstown and it all took off from there. Within eight Saturdays they had 100 children playing for the club.

They hounded local schools for support. Johnny recognises the support Castleknock Community College gave to the new club. Their principal wrote a letter which Johnny produced to the county board and local politicians in order to entice them to support the club.

Johnny elaborates on how funds were raised in order to give momentum to the project. “The local pubs were much busier than they are now. We used to be down there every night of the week gathering support. We got everything from them. They really were so supportive. They gave us cash when it was needed in order to buy anything for the club. We organised functions. Mick Lynch, a great man from Cavan, organised two golf classics in the one year with 50 teams in each. That’s a great bit of money raised. It was tough, but we got there.”

At their second meeting, they created a membership scheme. They all decided to give €20 each. The thinking behind this was that if 20 people gave €20 then that €400 could be used to purchase a set of jerseys. Johnny was overwhelmed with the support the club received at the start. “The local T.Ds were great - Joan Burton and the late Brian Lenihan – but so too were all of the local councillors.”

Castleknock were beginning to progress as a club. A year after their inception, they entered a junior hurling team. At times Johnny and the chairman, Fergus Hamill, often found themselves playing for the adult teams in order to fulfil the numbers needed.

“We adopted the mindset from the start which was to never give a walkover. I’d be very upset if we gave a team a walkover, even if it meant lads playing two or three times per weekend. That is how we aimed to get ourselves a good name in the county board. We never withdrew teams. Even if we were beaten, at least we fielded a team and fulfilled the fixture. We insisted on developing a good name that way.”

As the years progressed, Castleknock further improved as a club. In 2007 they won an All Ireland Division One hurling Feile. It was an extraordinary achievement for a club who were in existence for less than ten years. The Feile was held in Kilkenny. None of the country teams had even heard of Castleknock GAA Club. They were astonished that a relatively new Dublin club, whose facilities consisted of a council pitch and a container as a makeshift dressing room, were playing at this level. Castleknock beat Ahane of Limerick in the final. Brian Cody gave a pre-match talk to the team as he helped mentor the teams who had knocked out the local Kilkenny teams from the competition.

Members of Castleknock GAA Club during the Feile na nGael Atha Cliath parade in 2012

Confidence was extremely high in the club after that victory. The adult teams were gaining promotions and are now playing at very respectable levels in Division 2 football and Division 3 hurling. The Feile win in 2007 was the juvenile highlight for Johnny, and he admits it would be “very hard to beat that feeling of winning our first national juvenile competition.” However, progress can be seen at all levels in the club.

“Two years ago, we won the Junior A Dublin Championship in football which was brilliant. Kenmare beat us in the All Ireland Junior A semi-final which was disappointing, but it was a great achievement to reach that stage. Last year, we won the Junior A Dublin Championship in hurling. The hurlers will be hoping for promotion this year, but there’s no pressure on them. They’re a very young team.”

Castleknock are currently fielding three adult football and hurling teams. On average, there are 170 children who attend the nursery level in the club on a Saturday morning. According to Johnny, there are around 1,000 members in the club with a big emphasis put on family membership. There are an estimated 600 families involved with the club. The team who won the All Ireland hurling Feile achieved more success at minor level when they won the Dublin minor A football Championship. Competing at the top level has occurred for Castleknock, now they must strive to maintain that level of success.

Castleknock and Dublin star forward, Ciaran Kilkenny

When one talks about the current state Castleknock find themselves in, the name Ciaran Kilkenny must be mentioned. In Johnny’s opinion, Ciaran was “the best bit of talent in Dublin at under 14 level up to minor both in football and hurling.” He goes on to state that: “his talent was evident since the cradle. The impact he has had in promoting Castleknock has been huge; he’s a genuinely nice lad which helps the cause too.

The saga about him going to Australia and returning was mind-blowing for us. A few people had a quiet word trying to convince him to stay, for the good of his future career, but you can only say that to a certain extent. He’s an all round fantastic sportsman; he’s a brilliant tennis player too. His recent injury is not only a huge blow to him, but to everyone involved with Dublin GAA. I wish him all the best in his recovery.”

Overall Johnny is proud of the progress that Castleknock have made. “It was such a huge challenge at the start to get the club on firm footing and not just be temporary.

A lot of people involved with other clubs in Dublin saw us as a temporary idea at the start, especially when we were first looking for pitches. We were offered pitches on Dunsink dump and the joke was that Castleknock were going to get pitches with underground heating! A councillor actually came back to us with that idea. But that would have killed us; we aimed for everything to be local.”

Castleknock is now a distinct GAA area thanks to work Johnny and many others have put in.

“It’s been tough going at times, you have to be really focused. You have to be prepared to go beyond the call of duty sometimes. It takes up all of your spare time, but that’s how the GAA thrives. I was on talking terms with every chairman in the county, and we get on really well with other clubs. For me personally, in a sporting context, Castleknock GAA means everything to me. We’re promoting the games that we should be familiar with. It’s great for the community ultimately. When you put so much into it, it’s fantastic to see so much come out of it. You’d be a bit disappointed if it hadn’t reached the levels you intended, but at the moment we’re exceeding all expectations.”

Johnny recalls one of his most recent happy memories associated with Castleknock.

“One of the biggest matches this year, in a way the biggest adult football match we ever played, was against our local rivals St Brigids. We had to win in order to gain promotion to Division 2. The match was scheduled for the Sunday. On the previous Friday night, we had to beat Whitehall Colmcille’s in order to get to that position which was very tough. Beating Whitehall was our best ever win in terms of the standard of football, as Whitehall play in the senior championship. We brought a huge crowd down to St Brigids that Sunday and we came away victorious. But we were all welcomed in the clubhouse afterwards with absolutely no animosity.”

Indeed there has been a great amount of work put into Castleknock GAA Club but there are miles to go before they sleep. They recently acquired grounds beside the Castleknock Hotel where they now have fantastic playing facilities. Building work on a clubhouse should begin this summer. Johnny is aware though that they must keep progressing as a club.

“If we think everything is rosy then that’s the rock you perish on. You have to keep working hard and see where that takes you. But generally, it’s been brilliant. I can’t wait to look back on all the brilliant work we’ve achieved when our 20^th anniversary comes around in 2018.”

With his welcoming mannerisms, unique Finglas humour, and his honest toil, it’s clear to see why Johnny Corcoran has been so beneficial to Castleknock GAA Club.

There has been a core group of men working relentlessly on behalf of Castleknock since its inception in 1998. It’s these people that are the life and soul of the GAA.

They are the true patrons of the game. They represent the tireless volunteer work which the GAA embodies. It’s people like Johnny Corcoran that make it possible for Dublin GAA to achieve success at the highest level of the sport.

But for players rising through the ranks of Castleknock GAA club, it would be advisable to follow Johnny’s mantra.

“Castleknock should be people’s main aim. You have to start at the grassroots and if you’re good enough, Dublin will come calling. But the parish comes first!”

S.DAWSON 11/04/14