Past Presidents Tony Guilfoyle, Gerry Buggie, Gerard Byrnes, Dick Murphy and Joe Moloney alongside Dermot Hallahan Current President of Ennis Rugby Club. Photograph: Natasha Barton
According to the President of Ennis RFC, Dermot Hallahan “the foundation of Ennis rugby club is almost in parallel with the foundation of the state. It’s a very historic time and it speaks for the efforts of those that went before us. We are trying to reflect on and acknowledge that over the next twelve months”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo just prior to the launch of the club’s centenary celebrations last week he said, “we have a number of events planned for the year ahead and we are hoping to have a really big presence at the St. Patrick’s Day parade. A couple of our players will be presenting the concept of rugby as part of Seachtain na Gaeilge. Our own senior team will represent the country at an amateur rugby World Cup festival in France in September. There is a lot happening and it’s an exciting time to be involved”.
In addition to planning for the centenary celebrations, Dermot noted that the day to day running of the club continues with many teams playing weekly. “We are in the thick of the playing season at this stage. This is the time where various play-offs are being decided. The 14s, 16s, the 18s are all competitive sides and they are there or thereabouts and we will know in the next week or two who progresses further. The women’s teams are also doing well and you are trying to keep pace with so many results and so many different teams and then you go down to the minis and there are numbers there from under 7’s to under 12’s”.
He paid tribute to the volunteers who are working with the various club teams. “In each of those grades you are looking at half a dozen people involved in varying degrees at every age grade. When you do the maths from under 7 all the way up to adult you have sixty plus people giving of their time for the betterment of others”.
Continuing he said, “the values are very important, the basic stuff of respect, sportsmanship, enjoyment. that’s the kind of message we want to get out there. The elite level we all watch and we enjoy but rugby is a sport for everyone. That’s reflected in our playing base as we have players from North, East, West and South Clare, so we have big a very big catchment area and we are glad that we can provide the facility”.
The club is proud of the fact that they have provided players to a number of Munster teams. “We are fortunate that we have had players represent the club at the various development squads and representative grades through 16’s and 18’s. The Munster junior team is the pinnacle for Munster junior rugby and we have a long tradition of people who have represented the club at this level. That is something we are very proud of and each of those people should be proud of that also”, the president added.
“Our 18s won the double last year for the first time in our history and that challenge is there for them this year. We are fielding two competitive teams at 18 level this year. Our junior team are awaiting details of the Munster junor bowl having bowed out to Nenagh in the junior cup”, he said
“When we see people like Ethan Coughlan and Tony Butler who have represented the club going on, we want all of our players to be playing at the greatest standard that their capabilities allow but we would, of course, like to have them continue playing for Ennis,” he concluded.
