On The Road Again with Father Murphy CSC Arklow 🍀
Father Murphy CSC was formed in 2012. Our first & current chairman was Patrick Appelby and alongside Eddie Byrne, David Tyrell, James Appelby and Paul Nolan founded the club. We are located in Arklow & our base is The Brook House which has been home to a few infamous gatherings at this point including the first A.I.C.S.C. delegates meeting after Covid in 2022. It took a few years during the Ronnie D era to get traction and organise correctly but we took our time & by Summer 2016 we were ready and the results were worth it. Our first fully functional committee was elected & we were off to the races. With the help of then Leinster Rep Paddy Theo we then joined the Association of Ireland.
Although the club is based in Arklow we have many great & valuable members from all over the county of Wicklow too and many from County Wexford such as Coolgreaney and Wexford town itself. We also have large membership from County Carlow primarily being in Hacketstown and Tullow. Our membership contains many members that have been travelling to see the Bhoys since the 90s & a few that were there in the 80s too. Amongst our membership we have seen some of Celtics finest hours & Currently the club sends members monthly to see the famous men in hoops. We are grateful to be able to facilitate our members as much as we do and both ticket officers over the years Eddie Byrne & Niall O Leary did/do phenomenal jobs. Our members enjoy a great range of merchandise thanks to the efforts of Merch officer Gerry Earls and the club’s stability has been recently strengthened with many sound financial initiatives from Club Co Treasurer James Brauders.
After several years of travelling and fundraising the club found itself in a position to give back to the community and do something for charity. The direction given by Club Secratary Rob Sherwood in conjunction with the organisation of Club Treasurer Fiona Keogh made this something we could do. Our first endeavour in this respect was our Christmas 2019 raffle in aid of Arklow Cancer Support. It was a massive success and inspired us to do more. since then we have helped Friends of The Community, Meals on Wheels, Autism Dogs Ireland, WSPCA, Arklow First responders, a 2nd outing for Arklow Cancer Support, & Arkow Autism Friendly Town. We also performed several food drives at Easter which were a huge success. On this topic I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Celtic family at large for their kindness during our fundraing efforts for Eimhear Byrne. The generosity shown is genuinely difficult to put in words.
The Brook House has been our HQ since day#1 and thanks to our great relationship with proprietor Eugene Wolohan we have enjoyed the very best the circuit has to offer playing for us after games & on big occasions. Celtic Storm, Catalpa, Matt O Reilly, Katelin Tierney, Blackstairs Rebel, Danny Kelly, Gary Lalor, Cathal Graham, & An Pucas amongst others have been with us for some blockbuster days in the Brook. It has welcomed many AICSC members & travelling Celts & everyone enjoys the craic.
We joined the AICSC in 2016 & have participated & supported as much as possible over the years. Our PRO Frank Cullen became the Leinster rep in 2018 at the AGM in Limerick, a position he occupied until the most recent AGM last summer in Cork when he stepped down after 8 years in the role. Our membership in the AICSC has been beneficial but to echo what others have said? the greatest benefit is the friendships forged with other CSCs & pre-existing ones strengthened. That aspect has been invaluable to us and long may it continue.
