The club is situated on the edge of Camlough, a small village four miles outside the historic City of Newry. Camlough is the gateway to South Armagh and has been home to a football club since 1888.

That first club, William O'Brien's G.F.C. was founded by a group of locals, including William Osbourne who was elected as President. The name William O'Brien's was dropped after a political split in the Irish party in 1890 and the name Shane O'Neill's was adopted. Seán Ó Néill (1530 -1567) known as Shane O'Neill or Shane the Proud was an Irish chief of the O'Neill clan of Ulster in the mid 16th century.

The Shanes began to fade away during 1912 after steady success and continued to come and go until emigration and financial troubles led to its demise in February 1967.

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 were confident that the youth of the area at the time 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 most of the clubs biggest days have been at underage level with the historic All Ireland Féile title in 1987- the first time an Armagh Club ever won this competition. This was 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 has not just happened by chance. 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 benefits are plain for all to see, and this policy is now paying off with some success at Senior Level. Apart from the Armagh Junior Championship victory of 1994 and a few Division IV titles, the Seniors have had little success. That is until 2009, when the Seniors, managed by Marty Lynch, successfully accomplished their set target for the year by avoiding relegation from Divison III, the first time a team from the club has ever done so. But the icing was well and truely put on the cake when they also lifted the Armagh Junior Championship title with a win over their local rivals Belleek.

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 with their own families. They do this work because they are interested in the youth of the area and in up-holding our proud tradition of gaelic games in the area. 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.

In the future we plan to further the aims of the association and to improve the facilities at the field. At this moment in time we are developing plans to extend our clubhouse to build a sports hall and extra playing facilities.

The year 2005 was a very special year for the club as it was the 100th anniversary of its formation.The clubhouse and pitch were offically opened and blessed on the 26th of February 2006 by Bishop Gerard Clifford, an occassion which was marked with a challenge match between Armagh and Louth. Cumann Sheáin Uí Néill looks forward to many more clashes at both club and county level on our new grounds.

2009 will long be remembered as the year the GAA celebrated its 125th anniversary, the year Armagh Minors ended their 60 year wait to pick up an All-Ireland title and, from our own clubs point of view, our senior team won the Junior Championship title for the first time since 1994 with a fantastic win over South Armagh rivals Belleek back in October.

This championship victory saw the club take part in the Ulster championship for the first time in the history, winning their quarter-final against Sean Dolans from before being narrowly defeated at the semi-final stage by the eventual winners Emyvale from Monaghan.

The girls also had a very successful year, fielding teams at U16, U14 and U12 level. Our U14s had a great year – winning the county championship, runners-up in the U14 league, taking part in the Ulster Féile competition, taking part in the All-Ireland Féile in Co. Kildare where, despite not losing a game, they were eliminated on the points scored rule and finally, taking part in the annual Kilmacud 7s competition.

The Meabh O’Neills camogie club continued to field teams at various age groups throughout the year, from primary school age right through to senior level. Whilst the camogs didn’t pick up any silverware three of their girls represented their county at various levels during the year: Niamh Carroll, Louise Kenny and Jacqueline Girvan.

All in all it was a great year for the club and something which we hope to build upon next year with the help of all those involved with the club.

>> Click Here For Junior Championship '09 Match Reports <<