From the Slashers to the Gaels: Cavan town’s football story

EXTRACT

Cavan Gaels GAA Club launched Paddy Reilly’s book, From the Slashers to Cavan Gaels (1888 to 2017), before a packed audience at Terry Coyle Park on Friday, October 16.

The book tells the story of Gaelic football in Cavan town as it developed over more than a century. It follows the game from uncertain beginnings and repeated setbacks through periods of rivalry, amalgamation and sustained success. For readers unfamiliar with the club, it offers an accessible account of how football became woven into the life of the town.

This is not simply a record of matches won and lost. It is also the story of the people, places and decisions that shaped the local community. Drawing on articles from The Anglo-Celt archives, club records, personal recollections and conversations with older club members, Reilly places football within its wider social setting. He considers how changes in education, religion, population and administration affected the fortunes of the game. In doing so, he captures both the fragility and resilience of voluntary sporting organisations.

History in the making

The book was six years in the making, although its origins go back much further. In 1970, Fr Dan Galloghly and Bishop Francis McKiernan met JJ Reilly and Paddy Reilly. During that meeting, the two clergymen suggested that the history of Cavan Gaels badly needed to be researched.

Decades passed before the project began. In 2020, Paddy Reilly—the only surviving member of that meeting—took on the considerable task of bringing the story together. The result is a detailed history spanning the period from 1888 to 2017.

From early success to division

To understand Cavan Gaels, it is necessary to begin with the clubs that came before it. Cavan Slashers were one of the town’s earliest teams. They won the Cavan Senior Football Championship in 1891 and the Ulster Championship in the same year, qualifying for an All-Ireland semi-final in Dublin in February 1892. Although they lost to the Leinster champions, their achievement marked an important early chapter in the town’s football history.

The Slashers later won eight more Cavan senior championships, with their final title coming in 1941. By then, however, difficulties had been developing for some time. From the early 1930s, disagreements emerged among locally based players and other club members. Some wanted to establish a new club called Cavan Harps.

At that stage, the proposed Harps club was unaffiliated, but membership cards were printed and distributed. Meanwhile, the nearby junior club Crubany Sarsfields was seeking new players. A substantial group of Slashers members chose to step down from senior football and join Crubany. Their departure weakened the Slashers and contributed to the club’s continuing decline.

Two clubs become one

In 1946, Cavan Harps were formally established and Crubany Sarsfields ceased to exist. This was not an amalgamation; rather, it was a change of name, reflecting the fact that the club’s members lived in Cavan town.

The Harps quickly became a force in local football. They won the Senior League in 1946 and 1949, and defeated the Slashers in the 1948 Senior League final. The rivalry between the two town clubs was real, but it was eventually overtaken by a shared belief that Cavan football would be stronger if they joined together.

In 1957, Cavan Slashers and Cavan Harps amalgamated to form Cavan Gaels. Achieving the merger required considerable determination and a willingness to set old differences aside. Not everyone supported the proposal, and opposition was particularly strong among some Harps members, who felt they had more to lose. Significantly, however, the name “Cavan Gaels” was proposed and seconded by two members of the Harps.

The amalgamation gave the town a united club and laid the foundation for the successes that followed. It also demonstrated a central theme of Reilly’s book: clubs survive not only through results on the field, but through compromise, voluntary effort and a strong sense of community.

Coaching success

In the decades after 1957, Cavan Gaels developed into one of the county’s leading clubs. They won fourteen senior championships and nine Senior League titles, as well as more than twenty minor championship and league competitions.

Much of that progress can be traced to the arrival of Br Cyril, a young De La Salle brother from County Cork. He devoted enormous energy to improving the standard of football among boys in the town. After joining the Slashers, he remained an influential figure through the transition to Cavan Gaels and managed the new club to its first senior championship in 1965.

The opening of Terry Coyle Park in 1970 gave the club a permanent home and created an important focal point for players, supporters and families. The ground’s role in hosting the book launch underlined its continuing place at the heart of the club.

When the De La Salle brothers were no longer in Cavan, Kerry native Tony Looney recognised the need to maintain organised coaching for younger players. Other Gaels members, particularly JJ Reilly, continued that work. Their commitment helped create a strong pathway for successive generations and was reflected in the club’s achievements on the field.

A story that continues

The establishment of ladies’ football within Cavan Gaels in 2017 marked another important development. The strong attendance of girls at training since its establishment along with the success on the field, with Cavan and Ulster Junior championship triumph in 2025 has shown both the demand for the game and the value of teamwork, friendship and belonging in young people’s lives.

That development provides a fitting closing point for a history built around adaptation. The clubs, names and circumstances changed, but the desire to provide football for the people of Cavan town remained constant.

From the Slashers to Cavan Gaels (1888 to 2017) records that journey in a way that will appeal not only to committed GAA followers, but also to anyone interested in local history. Through the experiences of players, mentors, clergy, teachers, administrators and volunteers, it shows how a sporting organisation can reflect the changing life of an entire community.

Above all, the book ensures that the contribution of those people is not forgotten. It preserves the story of early ambition, damaging division, difficult reconciliation and eventual success—and explains how generations of voluntary effort built the club known today as Cavan Gaels.

From the Slashers to the Gaels 1888-2017 written by Paddy O’Reilly, available to buy, €50, by post plus P&P or stocked at The Chop Shop, Maudies, and at Cavan Gifts , Cavan Town.