Discover more about Dalriada GFC

AS DALRIADA GFC embarks on its 35th season of Gaelic Games, we look at the GAA in the northeast of Scotland at both club and university levels and reflect on the history, and origins of the Dalriada club, but also of the Irish in Dundee and Aberdeen.

The history of the Irish in Dundee dates back to the 19th century when the Irish—with expertise in the jute industry—mainly from Donegal, Sligo and Monaghan, immigrated for work in the jute mills with the main employer being Cox in Lochee. At its peak in the mid 19th century there were around 14,000 Irish in Dundee, around 20 per cent of the city’s population. The Irish integrated well with the local population, started football teams such as Lochee Harp in 1904 and Dundee Hibernian in 1909—which changed its name to Dundee United in 1923—and the Lochee area became known as Little Tipperary. While these Irish family names still persist in Dundee they are now part of the Dundee community and there are relatively few first and second generation Irish in the city.

While Dundee has organised and hosted Scottish and British Universities (BUGAA) finals in Gaelic football, hurling, LGFA and Shinty-Hurling over the years, we have never before hosted Scotland County League or Championship Finals. We have been granted this honour and will relish the opportunity to provide the facilities and hospitality to our colleagues from across Scotland for this prestigious event in our GAA calendar.

This provides an ideal opportunity to reflect on the past history of Dalriada GFC in the context of the GAA in Scotland and also in the development of Gaelic Games and Irish culture in the east of Scotland.

Community spirit

Even a brief summary of Dalriada GFC over the 35 will reveal some incredible successes, amazing stories, fantastic matches but most importantly and a great deal of community development and lasting friendships.

The origins of the club shadow the efforts of our predecessors in the early 19th century in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow in that the friendships were borne out of a desire to provide a home from home for Irish citizens who for educational or work reasons came to live for some time in Dundee or Aberdeen.

From there it developed into something more as those Irish who were already living and had made their homes here joined forces to build social and community activities, ensuring the GAA teams were registered to play in universities and Scotland County Board competitions and locally sought the help of local councils to provide playing facilities. These provided the foundations for stability and sustainability, and the successes over the years were the rewards that provided the inspiration and motivation to continue.

Landmark events

There are a few landmark events for the Dalriada Club that are worthy of acknowledgment and recognition.

In its inaugural year, 1990, the club—named Dundee Dalriada at that time—entered the Scotland County Leagues, GAA Championships and cup competitions at a time when there was a horizontal structure with every club competing in the same competitions and being a novice team it took a while for Dalriada to find their feet and be a competitive entity.

In the first decade of the club’s existence (above), however, Dalriada were undoubtedly one of the most successful teams in Scotland and indeed Britain with league and championship success.

Between 1991 and 1994, Dundee Dalriada contested all four championship finals, losing the first to Sands MacSwineys, winning the next two versus Mulroy Gaels and St Patrick’s Dumbarton respectively and losing the 1994 final to Dunedin Connollys after a replay.

While this first decade was characterised by tremendous success, the second decade between 2000 and 2008 was relatively unspectacular even though the club did have competitive teams, but had to concede occasional fixtures in the 2006 and 2007 seasons as it struggled to field a team over the summer period when it did not have students to make up the numbers. The club was operating with a squad of fewer than 20 players and it was clear that it needed to re-strategise for survival, and this led to the talks with Aberdeen on amalgamation in 2008.

On reflection, a very significant milestone in the history of the Dalriada club was the departure of Fr Eugene O’Sullivan from Dundee in 2006 as his influence on the club up until then was instrumental in its social and operational infrastructure and its success. St Francis Friary had become the social centre for Irish culture in Dundee—including GAA activities—and successive Dalriada teams over the years saw it as their social and spiritual centre. Dalriada struggled to field in the late noughties and the decision to amalgamate with Aberdeen in 2008 was a logical decision and a lifeline.

Amalgamation

The 2008 amalgamation was brokered through the Chair of Dundee Dalriada and the Coach of Aberdeen University at the time, Kevin Heffernan. It was agreed that the Aberdeen players would join the new entity to be called ‘Dalriada’ and the Aberdeen and RGU University players would join forces, sign up for Dalriada alongside Dundee players and would seek council training and playing facilities.

A significant feature of the dialogue with colleagues in Aberdeen was the travel issue with acceptance that participation in Scotland GAA would entail frequent travel to Glasgow, Clydebank, Coatbridge and Edinburgh.

Despite this the enthusiasm was unwavering and the Aberdeen leadership within the GAA has always been highly impressive. Dalriada rebuilt a good team and it was a real boost when Dalriada contested the 2010 Senior Championship Final.

Ciaran Finnerty emerged as the coordinator from 2011 to 2016 and under his watch the club had a committed and well drilled team which contested the 2013 and 2014 Senior Scotland Championship Finals.

On Ciaran’s departure back to his home county of Meath, Niall Horkan stepped up as the leader and with league re-structuring Dalriada was graded as Intermediate and won the 2018 Intermediate League.

When Niall returned home to Mayo in 2020, Cathal Gallen took on the responsibility of being the Dalriada manager, chief organiser and coordinator.

The level of volunteer work and respect these guys brought maintained a credibility and level of performance that has maintained Dalriada as a tremendously strong social and cultural entity and also won honours on the pitch during this time. This also catalysed another fabulous milestone in the club’s history—the formation of the Dalriada LGFA scene, which will be the subject of a separate article in the near future.

Talented players

In terms of onfield performances, there was always a chance with a revolving door system of recruitment year on year that the club would have different strengths in different seasons and Dalriada can boast some highly talented players over its 35 years history; including players who went back to Ireland and won All-Ireland Senior Intercounty Football Championships.

The 2018 season in Scotland was remarkable in that the Dalriada team—who had a number of players in the Scotland Senior squad including: Niall Horkan, Hugh Conlon, Pat Sweeney and Sean McBride—won the Intermediate League final in August and almost did the double losing the Intermediate Championship final to Glasgow Gaels by a single point.

The following year the Scotland Senior team won the British Championships in June 2019 at Páirc na hÉireann in Birmingham and Dalriada contested the 2019 Championship Final against Tir Conaill Harps in October 2019.

More recently, in the Cathal Gallen era, despite the lockdown challenges posed by Covid-19 in 2020, Dalriada had more success in 2021 with appearances in both Intermediate League and Championship Finals—unfortunately losing both. The Scottish Intermediate Championship Final in 2021 was lost after an extremely competitive game against Dunedin Connollys that went to extra-time.

The next season, the same two teams met again in the Intermediate Championship Final in Coatbridge. This game also went to extra-time, but one step beyond, it went to penalties for the first time in a Scotland Championship Final. On this day Dalriada were determined and for the first time in the club’s history, on the sixth time the teams met in a championship final Dalriada beat Connollys thanks to the skills of its penalty takers and goalkeeper Scott Goodall’s save in that dramatic shootout in Coatbridge.

The facilities that the club has enjoyed since the time of our formation in January 1990—supplied by Dundee City Council at a range of different venues in the city over the years—and the support that it has had from both the University of Dundee and Dundee City Council with the provision of facilities including the grounds, changing rooms with administrative support and ground keepers has been second to none, with the current location of full-size GAA pitches at Dawson Park and for the university, Riverside playing fields next to Dundee Airport.