More Teams from the Early days

Athlone Basketball Club

The sport of basketball was first introduced to the town of Athlone in Westmeath through Custume Army Barracks where, throughout the 1940's and 1950's, the army team were one of the top teams in the country.  This Athlone based Army team dominated the roster for the 1948 Irish Olympic Team.

From there, the sport crossed the river Shannon to the Marist College where it soon gained a strong foothold among the students. In the mid fifties, a small group of past pupils of the college (including Sean Fallon and Dermot Dunning.) , keen to continue their involvement in the sport, approached the management committee of the local St. Mary's Hall in Northgate Street and were granted the use of a small piece of waste ground at the rear of the hall, bordering onto St. Vincent's Hospital.  Utilizing their own resources and labour, they cleared the ground, laid a tarmacadam court and erected basketball stands.  From such humble beginnings emerged  the Athlone and St Mary's Basketball Clubs.  Here is the program from the 1976 - 5th Annual Noel Gahan Memorial Basketball Tournament promoted by St Mary's Basketball Club (Athlone)

Some History of the Noel Gahan Tournament

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1955 Kerry ( Munster Champions)

1956 Tralee Shamrocks

                      1956 Southern Command ( Cork Collins Barracks )

                                               The Birth Place of Basketball in Cork

1956 IONA (Cork)

  Cork legends such as Seanie Murphy, John Cooney

 and Pat Quirke all started with Iona.

Click Here to go to the IONA Team Page

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1960 Cork Gunners Munster Champions

            

A dominating team from the 50's and 60's

                                                              One of the first Cork Basketball Powers     
                                        (an FCA Army Team at Murphy's Barracks in Ballincollig)

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1960 Cork Tigers

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                                  U.C.C.  - University College Cork

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  1962 Killorglin Team (Kerry)

1963 Tralee (FCA Army) - All Ireland Champions

1965 Austin Stacks (Tralee)

1965 Ford's Team (Cork)

St Colms History

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The Belfast Celtics ( Early 1960s) - see the story

See the Belfast Celtics Team page

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St Galls (Belfast) 

Home of Big John Kennedy and Dave Hopla. Also coached by  Basketball Ireland Hall of Famer Danny Fulton in the 1970's who also coached the Irish national team from 1976 - 1988 and Star of the Sea in their championship years in the 1990s. 

• The Story of Dave Hopla (The Shot Doctor) from St Galls

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             Belfast Star of the Sea

2 Time Super League Champions ( 1998 and 1999)

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Moycullen (Galway)

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Trinity College Dublin  (1973)

The Trinity College Basketball Club was one of the first clubs established in Ireland in the mid 1940s and successfully participated in the Intervarsity Competitions. They also competed in the early years of the National League and many of the national tournaments.thru the early 1970s.

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