Black Bush Golf Club, Dunshaughlin. Founded 1987
A sunny Saturday in late March and the scene at Black Bush Golf Club has to be seen to be believed.
It’s like some extras from Mel Gibson’s Braveheart – filmed in part in Ireland – have gone rogue and popped up all these years later on the acres of parkland just outside Dunshaughlin.
This year’s Captain’s Drive-In is a tribute to ancient Ireland and its mythic legend. Men’s captain Rory Glennon is styled as another Rory – Rory O’Connor, the last High King of Ireland.
Ladies captain Claire Healy is dressed to represent Queen Maeve, the Queen of Connacht according to epic folklore.
Leading a group that includes the junior captains are two Irish Wolfhounds, two award winners in show who have been to Crufts and toured Europe in their own right.
Lining the approach to the clubhouse are hundreds of members who have turned out for the day to lend their support to the traditional tee-off by the incoming captains.
This one takes place in full ceremonial dress, to much amusement and light-hearted slagging.
Just to add a local touch, Glennon pulls off his garb to reveal a Meath jersey underneath, the Kepak legend a nod to another proud sporting tradition.
The Black Bush crest showing the motto ‘Spóirt agus cairdeas’ (sport and friendship)
‘Spórt agus cairdeas’ is the emblem on the Black Bush crest.
In so many ways, this golf club lives up to that motto of sport and friendship.
A short chip from the first tee is the pro shop which has Shane O’Grady’s name above the door – mentor and coach to Leona Maguire for so long as she smashed golf’s glass ceiling for Irish women’s golf and continues to fly the flag.
Lauren Walsh and Max Kennedy are part of a stable of other players on O’Grady’s books who continue to push the envelope on the different tours.
For O’Grady too, 2026 represented a milestone year in terms of his association with the Bush.
And to think that the red corrugated roof that remains in place is a remnant of the old cowshed where the first club meetings took place.
And not that long ago either.
The three sets of nine holes have matured into a tough test of parkland golf but it’s less than 40 years that this same stretch was just farmland.
It took the club’s own ‘Famous Five’ to bring the club into being.
The Black Bush Golf Club in 2005, back row, l to r; Pat Kenny (Bulmers), John O’Grady, Seamus Morrison, Tony Cotter, Daire Foran, Pat Connolly, Gerry Mangan, John Donnelly, Liam McKay, George Gear. Front row (l-r), Kieran Dunne, Pat Kelly, Christy Hynes, Myles O’Connor, Club Captain, Barry McDonnell, Team Manager, Terry Moore, Tony Finn, ahead of the Bulmers Pierce Purcell Shield semi-final in Rosslare Golf Club, Rosslare, Wexford
THE BEGINNING
In April 1987, this ‘Famous Five’ of founder members put the first wheels in motion. Those five were Seamus Ryan, Leonard Morgan, Hugh Doyle, Jim Marsden and Aiden Burns.
A public meeting took place at Dunshaughlin Community College with the view to setting up a members golf club in the area and a site was picked close to a local landmark known as ‘The Black Bush’.
That area was behind the well-known establishment, the County Club.
Conditions around the planning permission meant that a different, even better site was ultimately sourced, 186 acres of farmland on the outskirts of Dunshaughlin that was the former property of the Craigie family.
A sum of £250,000 was needed to acquire the site and a new plan focused on developing three nine holes, rather than the original planned 18.
It was designed by the late Bobby Browne, the resident professional at Laytown & Bettystown who served as secretary of the Irish PGA for many years.
Having 27 holes put it in the rare, elite company of the likes of Portmarnock GC.
But, as Vivian Marsden explains, it all started from humble beginnings. Her husband Finbarr is a son of Jim, one of the founders, and they all have been closely involved from the very start.
‘The Pro shop then was a cow shed,’ she explains. ‘That was back in 87.
The Black Bush Golf Club, Meath, team Vivian Marsden, captain, right, with Noeleen Kelly, left, and Adrienne Bowen at the 2011 Solheim Cup Club Challenge Leinster Final in Dun Laoghaire.
‘It was originally meant to be up behind the County Club, because that’s where the name came from, but the move worked so well.’
And the club was ahead of its time too in offering full membership rights to women from the start, unlike some others. A clubhouse was quickly built and a full roster of members signed up.
It’s grown from those simple beginnings to where ‘our membership is capped at 1000 members – 900 full members and 100 five-day,’ explains Marsden.
‘Plus, we would have charged a membership fee back in the noughties. That was during the Celtic Tiger days.’
‘Numbers dwindled a bit then. I was Lady Captain in 2014. We were struggling then to keep numbers. Had to ring people to stay with us.’
Now?
There’s a waiting list for junior members who already number 180.
‘We could take in 300 if we had the capacity,’ adds Marsden.
‘I used to teach in Dunshaughlin Community College and Dunshaughlin is getting bigger and bigger. Then there’s “the Rory effect… the Lowry effect”.
The club runs a Winter League, starting from November which consists of two 12-hole competitions which run simultaneously across the three nines.
There’s a snooker league that also runs, among a myriad of other committees and social outings, the Friday Night nine-hold social being just one.
And speaking of competitive golf, 2026 proved to be a milestone year for the men’s section. Here’s how.
WHAT A LEINSTER PENNANT MEANS
Liam McKay is an original member. A true blue Dub with three castles tattooed on one calf. A grizzled veteran of inter-club competition, who is incoming vice-captain.
Back in 2005, he played on the first – and only – Black Bush team to bring home a pennant for the men’s section when the Pierce Purcell team won North Leinster.
This year, he managed the Bush team that finally bridged the gap and reached the All-Ireland stage, with Derek Keogh assisting.
And the prep for that started last winter with squad get-togethers, practice sessions and targeted lessons from club pro Shane O’Grady.
Party time for the winning Pierce Purcell squad and Black Bush executive committee members
‘When we got on that run in the Pierce Purcell, the support that I got was incredible,’ says McKay.
‘Now a couple of times at team meetings I used the support from the club – it wasn’t just about the panel of players that I had in front of me.
‘One night I said, “Look fellas, we’re a group and we have been a group since last November but I said I’m going to tell you two stories now where this whole panel reaches out further than just us 14 people here sitting in a room.”
‘And I told a story about Mick Kane. So Mick Kane, God love him, passed a couple of weeks ago. He’d been in a nursing home for a year and a half. I know him donkey’s years.
‘The first time I met him he had three golf clubs in his bag, he had a pair of crocodile skin golf shoes, he had Pringle trousers, a Lyle & Scott top – now he couldn’t hit a ball out of his way.
‘And I used to joke with Mick, “You look like Christy O’Connor and you play like Christy Brown!” – we’d always have some slagging.
‘Now he never played in Corballis or Skerries; he played in Valderrama, Sawgrass, Adare Manor – he’s that’s the type of character.
‘But he got sick and anyway, to make a long story short, I started visiting him in the nursing home for a year and a half.
‘On the whole run through Leinster I was going into Mick. Now this fella used to sing for Ireland, drink for Ireland, talk for Ireland, tell jokes for Ireland – he was just he was a great character in the Black Bush.
Pierce Purcell manager Liam McKay being presented with the Leinster pennant
‘And he ended up in a nursing home, paralyzed down one side and couldn’t talk.
‘So I used to go into him every week and it broke my heart leaving the place because it was just sad. But I used to fill him in on how everything was going, round by round.
‘That weekend of the Leinster final, I went into Mick and told him we were playing Castleknock in the final – the final was in Ashbourne.
‘I told him the team, I told him I was very confident about going out after all the preparation with Shane and the clinics and the practice.
‘And we won the Leinster final on a Bank Holiday Monday. I left my car in the club that night because of the celebrations and my missus brought me down on the Tuesday morning to collect my car and the first thing I did was I drove from Black Bush to the nursing home in Dunshaughlin village to tell Mick how we got on.
‘I walk into the room. His young fella is sitting in an armchair – now his young fella must be 40 – and Mick’s lying back just staring up into the ceiling, kind of non-responsive.
‘And he sees me and he leans up out of the bed and he tries to say, “Well?”
‘And I just fist-pumped the air. And you want to see the smile that came on his face. One of his hands worked – he started banging the side of the bed.
‘And I said to the lads, “Fellas, the smile on his face – money couldn’t buy it.”
‘Like he’s lying in the bed, he can’t get out of it – and he was gone a couple of weeks later. But that minute or two minutes of happiness for him…
‘I said this is what this team is bringing to the table.
Pierce Purcell players Dylan Wray and Daniel O’Meara are united in celebration
‘And then I told a story about Claire Healy. She texted me after the Leinster final with congratulations, saying “Well done, great win, first time in 21 years.”
‘I texted her back and I said, “Claire, delighted, thanks very much but look if anybody needed a shot in the arm wasn’t it you that needed a shot in the arm because she was going in to have chemo treatment.’
‘And I said to the lads, “Look fellas, let’s keep this going as long as we can because it’s not just about us, it reaches out.”
As a dyed-in-the-wool Dublin GAA supporter, he took up a challenge to sing ‘Beautiful Meath’ if the Black Bush won. That night, he was as good as his word.
For the first time in 21 years, a men’s pennant could be added to the pennants won by the women’s section.
THE KOBE EFFECT
A Mayo friend told him of how teenager sensation Kobe McDonald wore an armband with ‘One Chance’ emblazoned on it. So he took inspiration from that and reworked it for the team.
‘I thought that’s a great idea, but I’d never put “One Chance” because obviously I want the lads to think they’re going to have loads of chances.’
‘Believe’ was the inscription on the wristbands handed out to each of the players for the Leinster final.
The club won their All-Ireland quarter-final in Ennis too before losing out to Portumna in the semi-final.
McKay again points to the coaching assistance.
‘We played Sutton in the Leinster semi-final. Paul [Behan, club pro with Shane] came over to Sutton on the practice match. He played nine holes with the lads.
He gave us all diagrams – be short here, be long here, be there. Went through everything. You know, they just, couldn’t do more.
‘We got the green speeded up, just in case the greens were much quicker than ours, so that we weren’t caught on the hop.
‘Shane came to meetings that I was at, and he stood in and said a few words on the mental side of things.
‘And I always wanted the captain and the vice-captain at our meetings, because I just wanted the players to see that it meant so much to the club. So obviously it feeds back to them.
‘Shane was down in Ennis with us and all. Like, I couldn’t not say enough good things about Shane and the support we got.’
A MODEST INVESTMENT
The sense of craic and camaraderie within the club is such that this summer, a decision was taken to buy a ‘club guitar’.
‘When we win we tend to go a little bit mental,’ laughs Rory Glennon. ‘End up celebrating and singing songs – and that’s after a first-round victory.
‘So we decided to invest.’
This year’s Captain’s Drive-In is a tribute to ancient Ireland and its mythic legend
The club’s unofficial photographer Kevin O’Brien, a former winner at the annual Fr Ted festival that runs on the Aran Islands, is just one of the regular troubadours, along with the captain.
Spórt agus cairdeas.
