Club Championships 2025/2026

The wider catchment wouldn't be huge, though I think they have gotten some juvenile players from the Hollystown/Tyrellstown area of Dublin who would have gone to school there. In Meath, they're surrounded by three massive towns in Dunboyne, Ratoath and Ashbourne.

They've put massive amounts of work into underage teams over the last 20 years. When I was playing underage in the late 90s/early 2000s, they literally had one adult team and no underage teams. Their best younger players would play with one of Dunboyne, Ratoath or Donaghmore/Ashbourne (whose pitch at the time was just a two minute drive from Kilbride itself). A number would have gone to St. Margaret's in Dublin as well.

Probably in the mid 2000s their U10s/U12s started making lower division finals and then, shortly afterwards, started winning them. They had some excellent minor teams about 10 years ago and were competing with (and beating) the likes of Navan O'Mahonys and Donaghmore/Ashbourne. They did benefit (so to speak) from the restructure of Meath football in 2020 when it was decided that only first teams would compete in the main football championships. They lost the 2019 Junior B final to Ratoath's second team (having lost to Kells' second team in the 2017 final) but were brought up to Junior A as a result of the restructure. That gave them scope to develop at Junior A without having to deal with big clubs' second teams. They won Junior A convincingly in 2023 before Saturday's Intermediate win.

Thing is, Kilbride itself isn't a parish, it's part of Dunboyne parish. And, as mentioned above, they'd be very close to Ashbourne, Dunboyne and Ratoath whose clubs would be much, much bigger. Their success in the 60s/70s was a perfect storm of exceptionally talented players growing up together and reaching their peak at the same time. I think Kilbride had 6 players in the Meath squad that won the 1967 All Ireland. The won the Junior championship in 1960, the Intermediate in 1962 and their first senior championship in 1964. From 64-71, they were in 7 of the 8 senior finals. They won 5 of those, lost one in a second replay and were disqualified from the other final as one of the Quinn brothers sat on the ball and refused to leave the field after a red card. After their 1971 win, they only reached the knockout stages once more and were relegated to Intermediate in 1978 and then to Junior in 1983. Their 1971 senior title was their last adult title until they won the 2023 Junior title.

Summerhill, who won the senior, would be a relatively small village. However, their catchment area is absolutely massive (probably the biggest in that part of Meath) and stretches from Kilcock, up to Kiltale and towards Dunshaughlin/Drumree, up to Trim and towards Rathmolyon/Enfield so their club itself draws from a huge area, even if Summerhill village would be small. Also, given their history, they can at times be a draw to stronger players from weaker clubs. Their midfielder, Adam Flanagan, transferred from Junior B club Clonard a few years back.

Ratoath seconds away from a second senior county final loss in a week. In the hurling final, they were 2 up with a minute to go before Kiltale scrambled a goal to go a point up with 30 seconds remaining. County man Podge O'Hanrahan though stepped up and sent over a brilliant equaliser from play for it to finish Kiltale 3-19, Ratoath 4-16.