Ladies to the fore as Donabate celebrates centenary year
By: Brian Keogh
The 2025 captains came dressed for the drive-in wearing the same garb the founders might have worn on 15 January 1925, when Donabate Golf Club was founded after a meeting at the Ulster Bank on Lower Sackville Street in Dublin.
It’s O’Connell Street now, of course, and while there were no ladies there that day, they have played a significant role in the success of a club whose motto, “Par Pari”, could be roughly translated as equal to equal.
Centenary captains Ciaran Gray and Eileen Gillespie are looking forward to a memorable year when the club will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a special gala dinner on 7 June.
It will be a grand occasion as the club pays tribute to the personalities that brought it from its humble beginnings on a few rudimentary holes in the sandhills near Portrane Mental Hospital in the nearby townland of Balcarrick to the magnificent 27-hole complex they enjoy today.
The rough and ready “Doctors’ Links”, as it was known, was created by staff and patients and played from 1906, gradually expanding until the advent of the War of Independence and the Civil War put paid to golfing activity for a while.
Once hostilities ended, the club was formally set up in 1925, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The move to the new course came about following the 1937 construction of a new road that opened up access to the seaside, making it difficult to play golf due to the vast number of day-trippers spilling over onto the links at the weekends.
Donabate still beat mighty Portmarnock in the semi-finals of the Leinster Junior Cup that year, only to fall to Milltown in the final.
But while an All Ireland victory remains the Holy Grail for the club, there is no shortage of pennants in the magnificent new clubhouse that opened in 2003 and is replete with memorabilia and trophies recalling its 100-year history.
It sits on the land the club discovered in 1937, leading to the creation of the first 18-hole inland course on 90 acres, which opened to great fanfare in July 1939.
Ten years later, the club won its first GUI or ILGU event; fittingly, the ladies took it home, winning the Eastern District Team matches.
Few could have imagined that a lady would bring the club worldwide fame back then. But Mary McKenna, still a proud member, won eight Irish Ladies Close titles and played on nine consecutive Curtis Cup teams in a storied career.
She is the club’s most outstanding player, but it has also produced internationals Bridhid Brown, Vivienne Singleton (the club’s first national championship winner in 1965), Jimmy O’Neill, Therese Moran, Gavin Moynihan and Pat Doran, while the great Andy Doherty remains a club legend for his role in back-to-back Leinster Barton Shield wins in 1968 and 1969.
McKenna and Singleton would go on to meet in the Irish Ladies Close final in 1969, but the 1970s and 1980s were also replete with success in interclub competitions.
It was in 1980 that the late Hugh Jackson was appointed as head professional, and he is still fondly remembered at a club that expanded to 27 holes in 1997.
Bertie Ahern opened the new complex in 2000, but while building the new clubhouse was also a significant milestone, the club was significantly enhanced by the opening of Donabate Portrane Tennis Club and six all-weather courts at the club in 2016.
Not including juniors, Donabate Golf Club now has over 800 members while the tennis club has 600, leading to increased use of the clubhouse, which has become a major social hub for a locality now growing rapidly.
The club is also on a sound financial footing and recovering from the 2007 economic crash that affected most Irish clubs.
As a result, the 27-hole complex is beautifully maintained by Course Manager Stephen Mullen and expertly managed by the estimable Robert Diggin.
It’s easy to see why it’s popular with ladies, given there are no major carries to be tackled on the Red, Yellow or Blue nines, all of which feature holes from the original 18-hole layout.
Resident professional Fintan Lacey is ready with sound advice on tackling a test that requires good course management rather than power.
There is no “main course” per se, though the yellow and blue nines are the preferred combination for major competitions.
Whatever nines you play, it’s a fine test of golf that wends between mature trees and the holes are wonderfully named.
From Long Lane, Tennis Court, Poc Fada, and Gan Gainimh (without sand, as Gaeilge) to Asylum, the short but tempting par-five finish to the Blue Nine, it’s an enjoyable and sometimes demanding test.Â
There’s water in front of the green at the Blue 9th, so while “Asylum” is a nod to the Portrane Mental Hospital and the club’s origins down by the seaside, it is also a haven for those who can’t wait to enjoy a tipple and some top class catering at the club’s magnificent 19th hole.
Donabate Member – Mary McKennaÂ
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