St Joseph’s Doora Barefield GAA club has been built on the dedication, passion and teamwork of members and supporters, past and present.
This news section will celebrate the people, stories and milestones that continue to shape our club – from volunteer profiles to occasional match highlights, community events, newsletters and key club updates.
Life before Gurteen – Jimmy Mac remembers
We caught up with the Parish’s elder statesman, Jimmy McNamara, a hale and hearty 93 year old. At his home in Roslevan he spoke to us about his earliest memories of what would become Saint Joseph’s Doora Barefield, and the efforts to find a home for the club, not once but twice!
Jimmy can remember keenly contested matches between Ballyogan and Barefield- players forming teams from either side of the railway line, with four McNamara brothers representing Ballyogan in these local skirmishes in the late 30s and early 40s.
What about the first time he saw the club play?
“My father spoke a lot about matches before my time with Purcells and Bakers involved, there wasn’t much won then, but there was a big rivalry with Kilnamona at the time, who had a good team then. The first game I remember was going with my father on a pony and trap to see us win a Juvenile championship against Tuamgraney in Tulla in 1942, and we won a Junior B the following year. People would travel on pony and trap in all weathers.”
Wandering Pitches- Refugee Status!
The club went under the name of Barefield in those early years, and with no real home of their own played wherever a field became available. Jimmy remembers frequent use of a field behind Barefield School but also treks to Jimmo Mac’s in Creggaun or Mattie McInerney’s in Ballymacahill, where lads were well warmed up from cycling large distances to training up or down through our famously long parish.
This homelessness temporarily ended when the parish connected up with Our Lady’s Hospital in 1949 and this coming together was to propel the club forward. The decision was made to call it Saint Joseph’s after a holy well close to the boundary wall between Barefield and the hospital.
Linking with Our Lady’s Hospital and first successes
“It’s a big parish -12 miles long and 2.5 miles wide – but like today’s teams once we got together there was a good bond. We won a lot in the 50s.”
“We took on good hurlers working in Our Lady’s at the time, and we went from strength to strength from there. Around that time the minor club started to get stronger too, we won two juvenile championships in 46 and 47 and (brothers) John, Pappy and myself were part of that team. There was another juvenile team a few years before us that had Maurice Fitzgerald and Flan Killeen.
I also remember great players like Paddy Marlborough, Martin Heath and the Hayes brothers. Then later on we had players making the Clare team – Donal O’Grady, Gerry Browne, Matt Nugent, Mick Hayes and Sean Howard.”
After an initial county final defeat in 1951, the club’s fortunes turned with Junior A titles in 1951 and 52 and famous county championships won in 1954 and 58 where Jimmy served as a selector alongside Jimmy Corry and Paddy Ryan (though Jimmy points out the teams trained and managed themselves for the most par back in those days).
He was himself part of the 1960 Junior A championship winning side, goaling in that win. They were halcyon days for the club, as incredible at that time as provincial and All-Ireland winning achievements would be four decades later.
The 50s saw Saint Joseph’s win a total of two senior, two Clare Cups, two junior, four minor and one juvenile championships, a tremendous haul, considering where the club had been, struggling to provide teams at all during the lean 1920s and 30s.
Following the golden age of the 50s, it became obvious to Jimmy and others that they needed a permanent residence to house the growing number of players turning out for the club.
Under the encouragement of local curate, Father Denis Kelly, a committee was appointed with the purpose of finding a playing field. Although long used to relying on the hospitality of local people, it was time to find a genuine home.
Finding Roslevan
A committee involving Jimmy Corry, Seamus Conlan, Dan Hogan (Secretary), Tommy Sheedy (Treasurer), Sean Minogue, Dinny and Jimmy Mac set out to find a location. Jimmy was given the job of sourcing a likely pitch and eventually a site was found at Roslevan in 1966, and this was to be the club’s home for the next four decades. Indeed 40 years later Jimmy would take on a similar job in locating Gurteen!
“We spent ages looking for a pitch. We bought it off Tom White for 1800 pounds but when we measured it, saw that it wasn’t wide enough. So, we bought an extra piece off Keane’s, who had butchers in town, for 400 pounds. I got a machine from Ryan’s and we levelled it. There was great voluntary labour from all over the parish, and we built a stone wall 200-300 yards long around it.”
Annual Marquee Helped Finance Development
Next came the task of financing the development of the land for playing purposes. The club ran an Annual Carnival of Dancing each summer in Barefield to that end, which became a very popular event across the county and beyond.
“We ran marquees in Barefield for six or seven years 3-4 nights a week and I don’t know did we make 1000 pounds, which went towards developing the site. We got five year loans from people across the parish at bank interest rate, 100 pounds on average each and paid all these people back at the end of year five.”
In addition thanks to parish exiles based in the US, a hurling fundraiser in New York organises by Mick Hayes, John McNamara (Ballyogan), Pakie Nihill (Doora) and Paddy Heffernan of Cappa netted a sum of 400 pounds to the project.
Work commenced on the Roslevan venue in 1967 and by the spring of 1968 the surface was playable, with the famed Matt Nugent the first person to strike a ball on the new pitch. The first official game was a juvenile match with neighbours Clooney, which Saint Joseph’s won by three points.
The official opening of the field didn’t take place until Sunday May 8th 1977 and was a big occasion for the club at the time, with Clare and Galway competing in hurling and Clare and Leitrim in football. The first game on the bill that day though saw the club stars of the 50s selection take on the then 1977 team. A great pity no video footage exists!
There was an early attempt at siting a stand for spectator cover, when a structure used in a film being shot in Ennis was purchased but the timber structure didn’t last long. Later, a sturdier structure built by Pat Frawley later replaced it.
Roslevan to Gurteen
Just like the late 60s the growth of the club again put enormous pressure on the Roslevan site. Replicating the success a half century earlier, the club was once again highly successful in capturing local, and now provincial and national titles. Recruitment wasn’t the issue it had been in the early decades of the 20th century, and the town growth added to resource need. Once again, club representatives made the decision to look for a larger site but it took time.
“We weren’t able to cater for the people. We tried places around Barefield, and Ballymacahill but to no avail, until this site in Gurteen being sold by the Horan family became available. I heard it was for sale.”
“I walked it with James Carolan and it would frighten you to look at it before it was developed. Where the car park is now was just a swamp and it was filled up with rock and filling – we got engineer Steven Lahiffe to measure it and took it from there. It cost us EUR2 million, but you can see what a fine facility it is now. The population of the parish and the club have grown so much it is great to have it.”
Pressure of space is always a theme at a club like Saint Joseph’s, but we can thank those such as Jimmy and his peers for their efforts down the decades.
From the modest beginnings, playing wherever space could be found, Jimmy was beyond happy to see the club reach the ultimate summit in 1999.
“It wasn’t an accident. People like Sean Baker, Mikie (McNamara), Michael McMahon and more put an awful lot of effort into the underage teams, and there was an especially strong team that won a Minor in 1990. We have been lucky to have great people involved down the years and I would say that as well about the work local people put into both Roslevan and Gurteen when these facilities were being developed”.
Newsletters
Archived Video Footage
If you would like to contact the club please email secretary.stjosephsdoorabarefield.clare@gaa.ie
