The Round Towers adult hurling team pictured before their first ever match.
By John Harrington
To get hurling to thrive in a club where there’s only ever previously been football, you need a few zealots.
Round Towers in Kildare town certainly have a few of those in their ranks, none more so than Christy Guiney.
When the club began fielding juvenile hurling and camogie teams in 2016 he was one of the first to offer his services as a coach.
And when they fielded a senior hurling team for the first time in the club’s history this year, he immediately put his hand up again and has seen action both as a goalkeeper and outfield player.
At this point it’s probably worth mentioning that Christy is 68 years old.
He’s still fit as a fiddle, though, and had played until the age of 57 as a goalkeeper for St Brigid’s Hurling club which drew players from Kildare town, Rathangan, and Ellistown until it eventually wound up because it could no longer field a team.
A native of Lisgriffin near Buttevant in Cork, Guiney moved to Kildare in 1972 to work in John Oxx Snr’s yard in Curragbeg and was quickly recruited by St. Brigid’s.
He was Kildare Young Hurler of the Year in 1973, won Kildare Senior Championship with St. Brigid’s in 1978, and an All-Ireland ‘B’ Hurling Championship with Kildare in 1989.
Christy Guiney pictured with supporters after playing for Round Towers at the age of 68.
All of which is very impressive, though perhaps now trumped by the incredible achievement of playing adult hurling at the age of 68.
“It was my first game in 11 years,” says Guiney of his return to adult hurling with Round Towers as a goalkeeper.
“It was great craic, but the goals were flying by me though! Nine went in, and I was definitely at fault for two of them. They were blasting them past me. Someone said afterwards ten went in but one of them was a square ball!
“Look, we'll keep going. We might get one or two young lads in this year and another four or five next year and if we could get a few lads in their twenties or thirties to join the club we'll keep building it and building it until we start bringing through the younger players."
Guiney likes to downplay his own role in breathing new life into hurling in Kildare town, preferring to point you instead in the direction of Paul Condon.
A Waterford native who moved to Kildare town in 2007 and hurled with Kill until 2015, when he retired from playing himself he decided to introduce hurling to his adopted home town.
“There seemed to be a bit of interest in hurling in the town, a few people in the Round Towers club were asking around, because there's a lot of, shall we say, blow-ins like myself living in town who would come from hurling counties,” says Condon.
“There's a few teachers in the local school also, St. Brigid's primary school, who had hurling backgrounds too so they had the love of hurling as well.
“We started with juveniles on May 16, 2016, hurling and camogie. There was almost 100 there for the first training session we had. We've kept it going and it's gone from strength to strength ever since.
“We're now fielding teams from U-16 down in hurling and U-17 down in camogie so hopefully in a few years we'll get all those young players through playing at adult level.”
Juvenile hurling and camogie is now thriving in Round Towers GAA club.
Encouraging those young hurlers to complete the player pathway will be a lot easier now that there’s a senior team in the club they can aspire to play for.
Condon himself has come out of retirement to play again, and by his own admission the panel is largely made up of other players in the twilight of their careers.
Their mission is to keep the show on the road until the juvenile structures start producing senior hurlers in a few years time.
“We started up social hurling last year and that kind of gave us a taste of it,” he says. “We got a really good response to that and we thought we might be on to something here.
“A lot of those lads who came long to the social hurling are now playing competitively with the senior team along with a few younger lads.
“We wanted to have a senior team so the lads now playing at U-16 would have something to aim for in a few years. They can see a team they can now play for further down the line whereas there was nothing there before.
“Currently the senior team would be made up mostly of outsiders like myself with a few local lads. Hopefully we'll get more and more locals as we go on. We just need to keep it going until all those younger lads come through.
“We’ll get a few hammerings along the way which we already have, but so be it, you have to start somewhere.
“We’re putting a lot of hard work in at underage level and hopefully in the coming years we’ll bear the fruits of that and we’ll get stronger and stronger at senior level.”
For two years running Round Towers have won a Gold Award at the Caman Cill Dara Club hurling Awards for the great work being put into the development and promotion of hurling in the club, schools, and wider community.
In the short-term, all recruits are very welcome. So if you’re living in or near Kildare town and you fancy reigniting a dormant hurling career, or you’ve just moved to the area and want to keep playing the game, then you can contact Round Towers at the numbers below this article.
In the mean-time, Christy Guiney reckons he has plenty of petrol left in the tank if required.
“I'd always be tipping away," he says. "I'm involved with coaching the U-14s and U-16s and I'd do a lot of stretching and things like that to keep myself going.
“I'd be down in the field nearly every night looking after teams and doing a bit of training with them. It’s all about the hunger to keep it going.
“As long as they’re stuck I’ll keep playing, and if they’re not then I’ll watch from the sideline.”
If you're interested in playing senior hurling with Round Towers in Kildare town, contact Christy Guiney at 087 2486617.
