'We have been on a trajectory the past few years' - chairman

St Oliver Plunketts celebrate 50th Anniversary

Thirty-four years ago, Liam D’Alton, the current chairman of St Oliver Plunketts Hurling Club, arrived in Mullingar to begin work as a GP after spending the best part of a decade living and working in the UK.

Outside of setting up a medical practice, one of his first ports of call was to find out where the hurling was in Mullingar. A native of Banagher, Co Offaly, Liam grew up with the small-ball game coursing through his veins.

“St Rynagh’s was my home club,” he explained. “It’s a great club that I still have a lot of affiliation with and affection for. Growing up, hurling was a religion for us.”

Liam came to St Oliver Plunketts at the right time. Sixteen years on the go, the club had won its first junior title in 1978 but still had to make its big break, with the likes of Brownstown, Castletown Geoghegan and Raharney the dominant forces at the top table of Westmeath hurling.

“After I came home from the UK, I met some of the early stalwarts of the club, Tony O’Donoghue, John Joe Lynch, Ben Kelly and Brendan Lyons, and I quickly got involved,” Liam continued.

“I was looking to play a bit of hurling. I suppose I was entering the final couple of furlongs of my own hurling career.

“I played until 1998 and had a great time. The club was very welcoming. I made great friends, and friends that I still have to this day.”

In the early 90s, after a few years of underage success including minor title in 1988, there was a real buzz about the Robinstown club and a sense that things were starting to happen. In 1994, two years after his arrival, Liam lined out at wing forward in a vanguard that included the likes of Eddie Casey, Paul Moran and Barry Kelly as Plunketts annexed its first intermediate hurling championship.

“Terry O’Dowd trained us for that championship. Of course, Terry still has an interest in the club to this day, and his grandson is hurling with us,” he added.

Liam hung up his boots in 1998, the same year the club won a second intermediate title after pipping Delvin in a low-scoring decider. He continued his involvement with Plunketts behind the scenes, while also serving many years as team doctor with Westmeath in inter-county hurling competitions.

That back-and-forth between intermediate and senior grade continued for Plunketts for a number of years until the 2010s saw the club become a real contender in the top tier – well-deserved time in the sun that Liam says was “the culmination of a lot of hard work and success at underage”.

The Mullingar outfit, under the charge of Ciaran McKenna, came closest to Westmeath Examiner Cup success in 2013 when it lost out to Castletown Geoghegan in that year’s SHC decider. Unfortunately, they couldn’t build on that momentum and by 2015, the club was back in intermediate grade. In coming to terms with that shock, the club also identified an underlying crisis.

“I think we had taken our eye off the ball slightly in terms of underage development,” Liam reflected. “Our minor win last year was our first for a number of years. Ten years ago, we decided that we had to really get back and seriously work on the underage.”

In 2023, the fruits of that renewed focus on youth development yielded its first big result when Plunketts annexed their most senior silverware to date with a comfortable win over Ringtown in the SHC ‘B’ final. Further success arrived in 2024 with an U20 title before the minors, with club legend Eddie Casey at the helm, triumphed with a one-sided victory over Clonkill last autumn.

“We have been on a trajectory the past few years, and all of that was driven on by a lot of our club members. There’s a great energy about underage development and our youth system now. We have great people involved,” Liam enthused.

As the club approaches its 50th anniversary with a gala dinner dance on May 16, the future is clearly bright for the Robinstown side.

“We’re the same as any club but we have fierce pride in what we have done,” the chairman continued. “We’re a tight-knit club. We’ve become one club in the past year or so, joining the hurling with the camogie, and that’s added huge energy as well.

“We’re very proud of our club. We’re delighted to have an occasion to celebrate what we’ve done, where we are and hopefully where we might be going.”

The club continues to develop apace, the fully lit lower pitch at Robinstown an example. A gym is now planned.

“We have tremendous committee members who give a lot to the club. It’s a unified club, which I think is important,” Liam added. When asked how long he has been in the chair, he replied, modestly: “A little while. Probably too long.

“In honesty, the other guys on the committee and in the club do a lot of the work. I’m happy to be there. We have a great team to take us into the future,” Liam concluded.