After the demise of Shane O'Neill's in 1967, a generation
of young people in the Camloch area were deprived of the
opportunity to carry on the tradition that had been built
over the previous 100 years and most people at the time
imagined that the name Shane O'Neill's was only a memory
and that they would never be heard of again.
However, in 1984 a group of ex-members of the Shanes and
others got together and started talking about reforming
the club. These people at the time were confident that the
youth of the area would rally to their call and play their
part in carrying on the great tradition. Shane O'Neill's
was formally relaunched on the 13th of February 1985 when
the first AGM for 18 years was held in Doyle's Public house
in Camloch.
Since then the club has gone from strength to strength
both on and off the field, but unfortunately apart from
the Armagh Junior Championship victory of 1994 and a few
Armagh Division Four titles, most of the clubs biggest days
were at underage level with the historic All Ireland Féile
title in 1987 the first time an Armagh Club ever won this
competition, quite an achievement for a little club in South
Armagh, an achievement which at the time was not mentioned
by the county board in the secretary's report of that year.
The club currently fields teams at U8, U10, U12, U14, U14
Girls, U16, Minor, U21 and Seniors. In the past few years
our Meabh O'Neill's Camogie club has re-emerged thanks to
the hard work of a few female members. More recently the
club has won the Armagh Féile title in 2006 and 2007.
But all of our success at underage level is not by chance
however. The committee of the club and the dedicated mentors
of the underage teams have put a lot of time and money into
the underage structures and the benefit is there to see,
lets hope that in the coming years this policy will pay
off with some success at Senior Level.
The committee of Shane O'Neill's work tirelessly and give
a lot of their free time to the club and community, time
which could be spent on their own facilities. They do this
work because they are interested in the youth of the area
and in up-holding our proud tradition of gaelic games. The
club currently has around 150 members, but as with a lot
of clubs in the country, less than half of the members actually
do anything for the club, sounds unbelievable but very true. |