GAA Clubs in Belfast

nedzer2011

Hi All,

Would anyone be able to recommend GAA Club in south Belfast close to the Lisburn Road. Mostly for the sake of having a club to follow and for something to do on the weekends. Might be temped into some Junior level hurling/football eventually if I can get back into the habit of training.

el tel

South Belfast Lisburn Rd would be St. Brigids probably.

Most of the other teams would be in the West of the city, which is not actually far from the Lisburn Road. Maybe 5-10 mins by car would take you to a few of the clubs in the west, eg St Pauls, St.Galls, St Johns...

St. Brigids is one of the few clubs that dosent have a club house/bar as far as I remember.

I dont know

Yep, St.Brigid's would be your local club - see http://www.stbrigidsgac.com/

A mate of mine played 2nds & 3rds football for them for a year there and said it was a good enough club. Their seniors play in Div1 in Antrim and would be a decent enough side afaik.

They play their games in Musgrave Park. As el tel says, they dont have clubrooms or a bar, but they hold some of their social events & training at Harlequins Rugby club.

nedzer2011

Went out to musgrave park for a kickabout there last week. Plenty of activity with a couple of underage trainings going on.. Do they even have dressing room facilities?Most lads either came togged out or getting togged out on the pitchside... Maybe its southern naiveity but I thought those days of getting togged out in a ditch were over?!?

I dont know

No, they don’t have dressing rooms. They only opened that pitch last year or the year before. At a guess, I’d say the land doesn’t belong to them and it would be difficult to get building clubrooms within the park if they had the finances available.
St. Brigids are only going around 10 years in an area of South Belfast that didn’t have a GAA club before, so they’re doing well to even have their own grounds. They used to play at harlequins rugby club before they acquired this pitch.

Berns

Think was sumfin seen in Irish News other day about them gettin approved for gettin some facilities, can't remember exact details but I'm sure it's only in the very early stages of plannin or sumfin. Had a hour to kill down town and was checkin job section .... and others since that took like 5 seconds :rolleyes:

nedzer2011

Yeah I suppose that it has to be difficult for a young club to get land and facilities, especially in a city.

At the same time though, its pretty vital that they get facilities built in the near future. What chance do they have of retaining their best young talent (or attracting new members) if a another club in reasonably close proximity, can offer top notch facilities! Not sure what it's like up here, but at home theres a massive problem with transfer between town clubs!

Might go and see about joining in the next week, although its a bit late at this stage to consider playing!!