Ballymoney GAA dates back to 1906. It's name derived from a small townland North of Arklow town. They reached the county hurling final in 1911 but lost to Rathnew. Many of the players left to join the newly formed Ballinacor club. Early statistics are scarce, but it is believed the club survived until 1932.

Ballymoney was reformed in 1942 but had to wait until the "fifties" to experience real success on the playing fields. They achieved a famous "3 in a row", between 1955 and 1957, in the South Wicklow Junior Hurling and Football Leagues. In between they won the 1955 Junior B Championship. Despite their successes the club disbanded again in 1962 and twelve years elapsed before the club would be reformed for the second time on 27th November 1974.

Once again success followed and the club finally broke from the ranks of Junior to achieve Intermediate status in 1980. This also coincided with the acquisition of a new pitch at Shelton. In 1981 they won the Intermediate county final and attained Senior status, a remarkable achievement in just 7 years since it's reformation. The club was also making great headway in Juvenile competitions winning numerous trophies at all levels. 1994 was another wonderful year for Ballymoney winning the treble of Junior A Championship, League and Swan Cup. This is just a brief history of a wonderful club and it's numerous achievements despite being twice disbanded and rising from the ashes each time to go on to bigger and better things.

 

The first meeting of Arklow Geraldines was held on March 26th 1940, a time when Gaelic games had reached a low ebb in the town. Founder members at that historic meeting included former greats Billy Byrne, Pat Kinsella, Bill Neill, Joe New, Mick and Sean Boucher.

The following year, 1941, they won a Junior Championship defeating Greystones by 3-8 to nil in the final. They also won the Ballycoogue gold medal tournament in the same year. In 1942 they won the Junior hurling championship beating Ashford in a replay. In 1947 Arklow Geraldines reached the Intermediate football final only to be beaten 1-7 to 1-2 by St. Patricks at Aughrim on November 23rd. However, they did win the Junior hurling championship that year. Arklow made a bold bid for the Senior football title in 1963 but suffered defeat at the hands of Baltinglass in a thrilling final at Aughrim. Two years later, in 1965, they reached the Senior hurling final and were unlucky to lose out to Carnew.

Despite winning 21 championships in as many years prior to 1969 in various grades they have never won that elusive Senior title. For many years they dominated all competitions at under age but have failed to reap the rewards at adult level.

 

The history of Arklow Geraldines / Ballymoney, as probably suggested by the name, is the result of an amalgamation between two local clubs Arklow Geraldines and Ballymoney. As you will see from the history of both clubs each had it's own successes at various stages, but the time had come when, in the interest of GAA in Arklow, a merging of clubs was necessary.

This was a bold step to take. "Partnerships don't work", "Doomed to failure", "It won't last, "mark my words", all the old cliches were rolled out. Despite all the doubts and some opposition the amalgamation went ahead in 1999. In our first year of competition we entered two adult teams, Junior A and Junior B. The majority of our panels on both teams were between 18 and 21 years of age. Would these young players be able to produce at adult level?

The Junior A team went unbeaten over the entire season on their way to a clean sweep of all Junior titles, League, Championship, Carter Cup and Swan Cup. Meanwhile the Junior B suffered the loss of some of their players to the A squad and made it a difficult year for them. Despite this they performed with great credit and many games were lost by a single point. They reached the Quarter Final of the Championship but lost out to Kiltegan.

The following year, 2000, our now promoted Juniors had to step up a grade to the Intermediate ranks. Once again our young men proved the AGB's were going to be a force in Wicklow football. Losing only once and drawing two games they finished third in the league just missing out on promotion to the Senior ranks. Unfortunately our Junior B squad, despite many outstanding performances in both League and Championship, were denied that little "rub of the green" at vital times.

 

Having finished third in the Intermediate League last year and narrowly missing out on promotion to Senior, we were delighted with the introduction of Div 1A which consisted of the bottom four Senior teams and the top four Intermediate teams on a home and away league basis. This new and innovative structure would offer us a series of games against formidable opponents and serve only to improve our standards.

A draw away to Dunlavin and successive victories over Aughrim (home & away), Carnew and Stratford put us at the top of the league table and well in contention for promotion. The Veha Cup, introduced to keep treams active while the county team was involved in the Championship paired us with An Tochar, Bray Emmetts and Rathnew. Although defeated by An Tochar we were encouraged with a victory over Bray and a draw with Rathnew.

Buoyed by our season to date, we had every reason to look forward with confidence to our Championship campaign. However, a very fit and well-organised Coolkenno side dumped us out of the competition in a game where we never really got going and gave our worst performance of the year. This defeat shook us to the core and was the start of a series of poor displays and defeats which ultimately left us languishing in the lower regions of the league and dangerously close to relegation. Thankfully the points we accumulated early on in the league have helped us to avoid the drop back to Div 2.

 

Being the second string, the Junior B team were never going to attract as much attention as our intermediates but as the season progressed it became impossible to ignore them. Unbeaten in the South East Section of Div 4 with seventeen wins and three draws from twenty games is pretty impressive. We have finished on equal points with Carnew and await a play-off to decide the league winners. Two fine wins over Eire Og and Rathnew in the Championship put us through to face neighbours Avoca in the Semi-Final. Unfortunately we failed to produce our league form on the big occasion and although we lost by only three points, we never looked like winning and Avoca were deserving winners on the day.

We also decided to enter a team in the Junior C Championship. After a fine win over Blesssington we were narrowly defeated by Newcastle in the Quarter Final.