By John Harrington

St Fechins GAA club in Louth are a shining example that hurling can sprout and blossom in previously stony soil given the requisite care and attention.

Hurling was brought to the Termonfeckin club just 20 years ago by a Waterford man, Mark Stephenson, and a Kilkenny man, Tom Ryan, who were both teachers in Drogheda.

They were encouraged in their efforts by the then club Chairperson, John Savage, and thanks to their dedication and a groundswell of support from parents and coaches in the club hurling quickly took root and began to grow vigorously.

Just 10 years after hurling was introduced to the club, St Fechin’s won their first even senior title, the Louth League.

By then they’d also established themselves as the pre-eminent power of the game at underage level in the county, as they went on to win six Louth Féiles in a row and one national Féile title.

Fast-forward to 2023, and they’re stronger than ever, recently winning a third Louth championship in a row and thriving at all levels of the game in both hurling and camogie as well as football.

St Fechins cultural officer, Donal Lynch, has coached and managed countless hurling teams in the club over the years years and is a member of current senior manager Niall McEneaney’s backroom team.

He puts their impressive journey over the course of the last 20 years down to a mixture of vision and hard-work.

“We were very fortunate that Mark Stephenson and Tom Ryan approached us to ask could they introduce hurling to the club, and very fortunate too that our chairperson at the time, John Savage, was so open to the idea," says Lynch.

"It's football country in this part of Louth, but at least hurling was given a chance to develop here and each chairperson afterwards has been very supportive.

"The result is that we are the only club in Louth who have both football and hurling for males and females.

"There was an effort made to get as many people coaching hurling in the club as possible at underage level, which has had a big impact.

"In the early days we endured a lot of bad beatings but Mark and Tom were visionaries really, they saw the possibility of having a very healthy club here. And then once we won our first Féile things really started to take off for us and we’ve been successful ever since.

“Camogie was a bit slower taking off but it's really thriving now too in the last four or five years. A few people came into the club who played camogie in other parts of the country and they have really lifted the club. We'd consider ourselves that the best has yet to come for hurling and camogie.”

The upward graph that St Fechin’s are tracking is all the more impressive considering it runs counter to the profile of the game in general in Louth.

Hurling has declined in a number of clubs where it was previously healthy, and now only three clubs contest the Louth senior championship when, until relatively recently, it was six.

The greatest challenge for a club like St. Fechin’s is to play enough meaningful fixtures to cater for the growth of the game in their own club, and to achieve this they compete at underage level in Meath, and their seniors take part in the Leinster Club Hurling League as well as the Cúchulainn League.

Their experience in the latter competition was especially positive this year, as they defeated Naomh Eoin from Sligo in the Division 2 Final.

“The Cúchulainn League was really good this year,” says Lynch. “We got quite a few games and got to the final of our division and won it. That was very good for us.

“We've also been competing in the Leinster spring League for a number of years which has also been very good for us. It's all about games, and that particular time of the year it gives games to lads that aren't with the county team.

“We have quite a strong panel at the moment. 35 people on the senior panel which is a big improvement on earlier years, and what’s also good is there's a lot of home-grown players. When we started out maybe two thirds of the team would have been made up of sons of people from hurling counties but now it's predominantly players whose families would have had no connection with hurling in the past. And some of them are very, very skilful.”

The positive manner in which St. Fechin’s as a club promote all Gaelic games codes is a template you’d like every club to follow, and they’ve also shown admirable vision in how they’ve developed their club infrastructure.

Just over two decades ago far-sighted club members purchased a 27-acre plot of land just outside the village.

Some of it was zoned for housing and the sale of those houses financed the development of three full-sized pitches (two of them floodlit), two astro-turf pitches, a club-house with four dressing-rooms, a perimeter walk-way, a winter training area, and a club shop, and, most recently, a state of the art community centre. There are plans also in place to build a ball wall in the near future.

Off the pitch, they’re also very progressive. A vibrant Healthy Club programme that engages the whole community, Mothers & Others and Dads & Lads teams, and a strong promotion of the Irish language are just some of the positive directions the club has gone in.

A good club ethos off the pitch usually translates to a strong spirit on it, so keep an eye on Saturday’s AIB Leinster Club Junior Hurling Championship quarter-final between St. Fechin’s and Leixlip.

A St Fechin’s team minus some key players through injury and suspension will go in as underdogs against a Leixlip side that won their first-round tie against Navan O’Mahony’s easily, but they won’t fear the challenge.

Such is the ambition in the club to raise their level that an opportunity such as this to find out exactly where they are on their developmental journey is one they’ll relish.

“We're very conscious of the fact that we need to be playing against better teams from stronger counties in order to get better ourselves,” says Lynch.

“We know that Lexlip are a very strong team and that this will be a huge challenge for us, particularly as we’re missing a few players.

“But there’s great spirit in this club and we’re hoping strongly that at the least we’ll put in a very good performance.”

Putting their best foot forward seems to come naturally to St. Fechins GAA club, so you wouldn't doubt them.