The founding of the Clara GAA Club

On 15th December, 1884, the Clara Hurling Club was affiliated to the newly founded Gaelic Athletic Association. It has been widely accepted that Clara was the first club in the provinces to become affiliated. 

The very first would appear to have been Metropolitans, a club organised by Michael Cusack with a membership drawn mainly from civil servants and students attending Cusack's academy in Gardiner Place, Dublin. The first President of the Clara club was PJ.  White, whom an early history of the Association describes as "the most active pioneer of the GAA movement in his district in the eighties. 

P.J. White had already been active in the National movement for many years, As such he had come under the attention of the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Castle, and according to police reports he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood around 1874. His grocery and licensed premises in Main Street was regarded by the RIC as a place where "Fenianism was strongly carried on" and he was regarded as instrumental in introducing John Clery, who was afterwards to the fore in nationalist activities in Mullingar and Tullamore in the 1880s, in the IRB.

Clery had served his apprenticeship in the bar and grocery trade with P.J. White between 1875 and 1879 White was unsuccessfully prosecuted in March 1881 for displaying flags at his licensed premises and he was imprisoned in October 1881 at Naas jail under the Protection of Person and Property Act 1881. He had also been active in the Land League as secretary of the Clara  branch and attended a number of meetings of the Central Land League between February and October 1881, when the League was suppressed.

Very few records survive of the early years of the Clara club. Although it was affiliated in December 1884, it is not among the branches listed by Michael Cusack, the Honorary Secretary, in his report to the adjourned convention of February 1886. The only club listed from King's County was Shinrone. 

It is important to realise however that poor record keeping appears to have been one of Michael Cusack's weaknesses and was a contributory factor in his being requested to resign from the position of Honorary Seretary in July 1886. 

The records show that on Easter Monday, 25th April 1886, teams representing Leinster and Connacht met in Athlone, and thousands travelled to watch. Athenry beat Clara in hurling. P.C. Kelly led the Athenry team and PJ. White was in charge of Clara. It is recorded that all the business in connection with the contest was transacted in Irish. P.J. White was link-man in arranging this fixture and his wife, formerly Delia Ryan, was a native of Athenry.

Whatever about the records for 1886, Clara was represented at the 1887 convention by P.J. White. This convention was to be the stormiest in the history of the Association and was to greatly influence its future direction. Close on 800 branches were represented at the convention held in Thurles on 9th November 1887. By the Spring of 1887 a number of leading IRB members, notably J.K. Bracken of Templemore (one of the founders of the Association in 1884), P.T. Hoctor of Limerick and John Boyle O'Reilly of Dublin had moved into positions of influence in the Association.

At the convention in Thurles Courthouse the IRB grouping in the Association moved to increase its control of it. Their nominee, P.N. Fitzgerald, the leading IRB organiser for the south of Ireland, was elected to the chair, and this led to about 200 delegates led by Father John Scanlan from Nenagh withdrawing from meetings, holding another in the market-place in Haves's Hotel, and setting up a breakaway organisation. Meanwhile at the Courthouse the convention proceeded to oust the President, the renowned Tipperary athlete Maurice Davin, and elect E.M. Bennett of Clare as President.

We do not have any record of P.J. White's contribution to the actual meeting, but like others among the IRB ranks present, his movements were watched by at least two police observers by whom he was regarded as one of the "advanced IRB observers." It was recorded that he arrived on the mid-day train and that he and J.K. Bracken were enthusiastically received by John Boyle O'Reilly (the joint Honorary Secretary), S.J. Dunleavy, J.E. Kennedy, P.J. Allen and the "remainder of that crowd." From this it would appear that P.J. White was one of the most significant figures in organising the dramatic change within the leadership of the Association.

The threat of a split was very real after the meeting, and the Archbishop of Cashel, Dr. Croke, threatened to resign as patron. He also proposed a radical re-organisation of the central GAA, with each county having an independent management, the clubs being under local and county management rather than central control, A reconvened convention was held in January 1888 and Davin was re-elected President, with both sides agreeing that unity must be achieved after the six month split Determined work throughout 1888 and an increasing tendency on the part of the local clergy to discourage participation in the GAA enabled the IRB to increase its influence at the 1889 convention and this influence was to remain. In 1890 there were 810 clubs affiliated to the GAA of which 191 were controlled by the clergy, 497 by the IRB and 122 were unattached.

in King's County, however, as in most of the rest of the Diocese of Meath, the Association was under clerical control. The President of the King's County Committee was Rev. W. Maher C.C., Killeigh. Only four clubs, Cloghan, Ballina, Banagher and Frankford, were particularly under IRB influence. There were 20 clubs affiliated in the county as against 22 in the previous year and police reports suggested that in the latter part of the year the Association was showing signs of decay in King's County. Clara was not an affiliated club. It would appear that under the influence of its President (or the "chief" as he was then known in Clara) it was likely to be affiliated under a county committee which had passed a resolution against Parnell. 

In the early years of the 1890's the numerical strength of the GAA nationally diminished considerably. It incurred the hostility of the hierarchy and the clergy which mounted to a climax during 1891 when the GAA strongly supported Parnell. P.J. White remained a Parnellite after the split within the Irish party in 1890-91. He and his wife attended a Parnellite convention following which he had his dues returned and his wife was removed from the Presidency of the Sodality of the Meath. From that time on White ceased to attend mass in Clara, and drove to Tubber or Moate each Sunday for Sacred Heart by Canon Gaffney P.P. (later Bishop of many years).

The police records give us a description of the man in August 1890. "42 years of age, 5 feet 7 or 8 inches in height, black eyes, black moustache, pretty long and pointed, regular nose, stout make-dresses well-gentlemanly appearance." Although it would appear that by 1891 PJ. White had ceased to be an influential figure in the running of the GAA in King's County, he retained influence at a national level. On 9th November 1891, Patrick W. Nally died in Mountjoy jail on the eve of his release. Nally had been one of the chief organisers of the IRB in Connacht and provincial delegate to the IRB Supreme Council in 1879. He and Cusack met in 1879 and had organised national athletic meetings up to 1881.

Following his death a meeting was held in the Nationalist Club, Dublin. A committee of 13 (chaired by Patrick O'Brien, M.P. and including Patrick Tobin, Secretary of the GAA) was appointed to make arrangements for a public funeral. P.J. White was one of the committee, and he is also listed with James Stephens, John O'Leary John Redmond and twelve M.P.s who attended the funeral to the Terence Bellew McManus Cemetery.

P.J. White was very much affected by the death of Parnell and during the 1890s his involvement in political and GAA activities diminished. However, when the Offaly County Board of the GAA came to be formed in 1893, Clara Band Room was the venue and one can assume that his influence in this event was considerable. He also played a major part in organising a group of Clara people who successfully resisted the efforts of the Bishop of Meath, Dr. Gaffney (formerly Clara's parish priest) to remove the Franciscan Brothers from their position in the town's national school. In the elections following the passing of the legislation establishing County Councils in 1898 he was a successful candidate and was a member of the Tullamore Board of Guardians at the time of his death.

If, as the records appear to indicate, he was a member of the IRB one would have expected him to have been a supporter of the "ban" which was mooted fo many years prior to being adopted in 1903. The ban was essentially an attempt to keep GAA membership at arm's length from both the garrisons and the RIC. The latter had infiltrated both the Association and the IRB. Family tradition is, however, that he was opposed to the ban. Like Michael Cusack and Parnell he had been a keen cricketer in his younger days, and his sons attended Blackrock College where they developed a keen interest in Rugby. One of them, Michael Henry, was a classmate of Eamonn De Valera and another, James, who was an influential figure in the establishment of Fianna Fail retained the unlikely mixture of rabid republicanism and passionate interest in rugby right to the time of his death in 1955.

PJ. White died on 23rd February, 1902, at 46 years of age and is buried at the Monastery Cemetery.

Cumann Lutchleas Gael, An Clarach

Roll of Honor 1884-2021

U-12 Football 1949, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1966, 1995

U-12 Hurling (A) 1956, 1960, 1963

U- 14 Football 1941, 1946, 1947, 1956, 1960, 1963, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1983, 1986,

1997

U-14 Hurling (A) 1956, 1960, 1963, 1967

U-14 Hurling (B) 1974, 1977, 1979, 1983, 1984

U-16 Football 1930, 1956, 1973, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1999

U-16 Hurling (A) 1955, 1956

U-16 Hurling (B) 1973, 1976, 1977, 1977, 1979, 1980

U-17 Hurling (A) 1957

Minor Football 1952, 1956, 1957, 1966, 1978, 1983, 1992, 1998, 2001

Minor Hurling (A) 1955, 1957

Minor Hurling (B) 1976, 1991, 1993

U-21 Football 1980, 1983, 1993, 1996

Junior Football 1911, 1919, 1928, 1954, 1996, 2007

Junior Hurling (A) 1920, 1926, 1941, 1983, 1996, 2015

Junior Hurling (B) 1991

Junior Hurling (C) 1984

Intermediate Football 1956, 2021

Intermediate Hurling 1934, 2003, 2019

Senior Football 1960, 1964, 1991, 1993, 2003, 2009

Senior Hurling Finalists 1923, 1935