Killybegs has had several golf clubs or societies.  This article is about clubs formed in 1925 and in 1940, and is not concerned with later clubs such as the Golf and Social society of 1980.  Golf was started in Killybegs by Jack Sheridan and the staffs of the two banks, Ulster and National. Senior bank staff, arriving from larger towns, tended to look around for the golf course, which, in this town, did not exist. 

The banking class found life of small-town Killybegs pretty humdrum, with only badminton, tennis, table-tennis, and the odd whist-drive to occupy their leisure time.

Jack Sheridan, who had married Mary Rogers of the hotel dynasty, and set up a drapery shop in what is now McGinley Drapers, led the project to establish a golf course.  In this he was assisted by local banking staff – managers and clerks.  Jack, with his daughter Margaret, known as Gretta, and son Charlie, would become very actively involved in the new club down through the years. Jack was grandfather of Irene McNern, Donegal Road, and John Sheridan, Bruckless.

After much preparation the first Killybegs course was opened in 1925.  The new course was established on a piece of ground on Dick Morrow’s farm, this being on the road leading to Conlin, and on the opposite side of the road to where the Guards’ houses were much later built.   The land on which the course was laid out was known locally as Dick Morrow’s Curragh.  It was the following year that the Club got around to formally leasing the Curragh, which was done by an Indenture dated 30^th August 1926.  Dick Morrow had been Gardener at the White House, Killybegs, and had moved, with his wife Mary Jane and family, to a two-storey house in Drumbeagh at some time before 1926.  This house, which has been derelict for many years, lies at the end of an avenue, just above the Guards’ houses.  Morrow’s Curragh is now owned by Donal O’Donnell.  The Morrows had three sons, Stanley, Harold and Jack.  This writer remembers Stanley making his delivery of milk from his two ‘tin cans’ to households in the town in the 1950s.  He was the most gentle man in Killybegs, doing all his rounds dressed in a long raincoat, usually with a cigarette between his lips. Stanley had this ability to smoke a butt down to almost nothing.

The officers of the club in 1928 were: Rev. Willie J. Sheridan, C. C., (president); James Black, cashier, Ulster Bank (captain); and Willie Diver, N.T. of the Commons School (secretary). 

Esther Molloy is the owner of this fine photo, dated 1925, taken on the course, of Jack Sheridan, captain, presenting the cup to James Nixon, and for identifying others in the frame.

Left foreground – W. McGarrigle, Centre back: Paddy Daly (Customs & Excise) and his wife Gretta (Sheridan); Father W. J. Sheridan, C.C., Killybegs, Charlie Sheridan, Jack Sheridan’s son, and Mrs Lizzie Nixon in the cloche hat.  Is there anyone out there who could identify the caddies?  (Gretta Sheridan, Charlie’s sister, married Paddy Daly in the Pro-Cathedral on 4 September 1929, the ceremony being conducted by Father W. J. Sheridan, C.C., no relation).  This photo is remarkable in that it depicts those most powerful in Killybegs as well as the wee boys in their bare feet.   

When members of the I.N.T.O, held their regional meeting in Killybegs in August, 1928, Master Diver invited them to play on the new course.  They adjourned their meeting early to enjoy a ‘very pleasant game of golf on a very picturesque course’.  During the following year a correspondent described the Killybegs course:

Within a few minutes’ walk from the town, on Conlin Road, is a well laid out and very sporty nine-hole course.  Probably those who have reached the standard of driving a ball 250 yards or more would have few opportunities of exerting themselves to the utmost, but to the average player the links provide a delightful variety of shots, with little intricacies in abundance.  The soil is naturally damp, so that the greens retain a delightful verdure all through the summer.  With single figures handicap, players would be looking for rounds of thirty, and even those with handicaps well up in the teens, should manage an average of fours.  From the course a charming view of the harbour is obtained.  Looking south, driving off the 8^th tee, Bruckless Bay and Donegal Bay seem like lakes, whilst Bundoran is plainly visible on the distant shore.

Jack Sheridan replaced the Ulster Bank cashier, James Black, as captain in 1931.  Unfortunately very little is known about this first Club, which seems to have faded out by 1933.  

THE 1940 CLUB

The Killybegs Club was revived in 1940, due to the efforts of some of the bank clerks, with Thomas Hussey of the National Bank (later Bank of Ireland) to the forefront.  The promoters hoped to have an opening on the 26^th June, but the workmen were still on site. In the first week in August the course was opened by Eamonn Reilly, acting secretary of the Killybegs Club. 

Dr Falvey, Ardara, was to do the honours, but he telegraphed that he was detained on a case. The course would undoubtedly have been opened by Dr John J. Walsh, the extremely popular Killybegs M.D., but he had died in hospital in Dublin in January of this same year. In the interim, Dr Malachy McCloskey had been doing locum at Killybegs, and Dr Michael O’Boyle had not been appointed until December.

The Club raised their funding by running dances and whist drives in the Foresters’ Hall.  This notice is from November1940:

At their meeting in July 1941 the Club appointed the following officers for the ensuing year: Captain: Jack A. Corcoran; president: Jack Sheridan; treasurer: William Reilly; secretary: Thomas W. Hussey.  Greens committee: Joseph McBrearty, Charles Sheridan, Patrick Cunningham (solicitor), J. Cole, J. Langmore, and Willie Diver, N.T.  At this time they decided to hold a weekly tournament on each Wednesday evening, and to make arrangements for a club match between Portnoo and the local Club. In the final of the Nixon Cup played on the Killybegs course in September 1941, James A. Black, manager, Ulster Bank, defeated R. J. Langmore.  The cup was presented to the ‘magnificently attired’ Black by Jack Sheridan, president of the Club.    Second prize went to Joe Herron, the Ardara businessman.  Fifty competitors entered for the opening competition, in which Dr McCloskey, holed in one.  In a separate development: on Sunday 21^st June 1942, the proprietors of Fintra House Hotel opened a nine hole Links course on their grounds, but by 1948 it had fallen into disuse. In October of that year it was reported that ‘Fintra Strand is fitted with a most up-to-date golf course’.

Officers of the Killybegs Club for 1943 were: Patron: Very Rev. James Canon Brennan, P.P., president: Allan Rogers; treasurer: P. McShane; secretary; Mrs Annie Furey; captain: Mrs Hancock. (Annie Furey was a grand-aunt of Mary Fitzgerald Lafferty; Allan Rogers was grandfather of Siobhan Gordon Clarke.

This article has been compiled from the meagre information available, and may be subject to alteration, as more data comes to hand. Contributions are welcome.

The photograph preserved by Esther Molloy gives us a useful look into the 1920s when social outings such as golf were much as they are today, although having a strong class structure during those years.