1876 – the year we were founded?
It is generally assumed that Clontarf Cricket Club was
founded in 1876. Without documentary
proof however, it is hard to verify the actual date. The earliest written history was included in
a brochure for a Fund Raising Fete in 1911 and it admitted that it was “hard to
assign a date to its formation” merely confirming that a healthy organisation existed in the
middle 1880's. This is indisputable, we have a notebook from 1886 confirming a
membership of over 50 and photographs exist from as early as 1883. What we do
not have however is minute books or similar dating back into the 1870's. So from where did the date of 1876
appear? It is first mentioned in the
Club’s annual fixture book in the 1950’s and appears in the history written for
the opening of the new ground in May 1958 as a definitive date. This history quotes from the Irish Sportsman
from 27 July 1878 who “welcome the suburban Club, Clontarf, and wish them every
success in their endeavor to promote so healthy and manly a sport in their own
district”. This quotation certainly
makes a reasonable case for a foundation in the mid 1870’s.
However, now that the Irish Times archive can be so easily
accessed, we are able to see that cricket in Clontarf existed a long time
before 1876 and indeed games involving a club going by the name of Clontarf
C.C. were played early in the 1860’s. The
earliest mention found to date is from the paper printed on Wednesday 21 May
1862 involving a game against Clonliffe.
Clonliffe were comfortable winners as can be seen from the scorecard
below, beating Clontarf by 10 wickets in a 2 innings game. To put
this date in some cricketing context, 1862 was the year of the first tour by an
English side to Australia but it was 2 years before “over the shoulder” bowling
was permitted by the rules.
The game was played at the Clontarf ground but it fails to
state the location of that ground.
However another record found in the archive from 16 June 1865 reports on
a local derby between Clontarf and Killester played at “the ground of the
former club, North Bull”. There would
not have been any conflict with Royal Dublin Golf Club however as they only
moved to Bull Island in 1889 having moved to that location from their original
home at Phoenix Park.
Once again the Clontarf XI were well beaten. The star of the
Killester team was T. King who followed his 6 wickets in the first innings by
taking a further 4 in the second. He also top scored in the Killester innings,
scoring 27. Interestingly, a T. King
also played in the Clonliffe game for Clontarf but he was less successful in
the earlier game with a pair of ducks and no wickets.
It should be no surprise that we can find cricket in the
area before our “official” founding date, Ger Siggins, the well-known cricket
journalist and author has traced cricket in the names of both YMCA C.C. and
Strabane C.C well before their supposed beginnings. It will be interesting to find if cricket in
Clontarf (or indeed our near neighbour Killester) can be traced to before 1862
as more and more newspaper archives become easily available.
