MONKSTOWN RFC: FOUNDED 1883
HOME GROUND: Sydney Parade
League: AIL Division 2B (South)
Monkstown RFC is nestled in the heart of Sandymount. Prime real estate, as they say in the property game.
Everything is on the club’s doorstep. A big catchment area, with hallowed rugby institutions such as St Michael’s and Blackrock College schools in the vicinity.
Thing is, south Dublin is saturated with ambitious rugby clubs who are all hunting for the same resources.
Monkstown, which was founded in 1883, have always punched above their weight, however.
Monkstown RFC president Donal Courtney, ex-club player and a former international referee
‘You could throw a blanket over seven or eight rugby clubs who are all chasing the same fellas coming out of school,’ says club president Donal Courtney, the former international referee who has officiated in Heineken Cups, Six Nations and World Cups.
‘You have Wanderers, Bective, Old Wesley, UCD, Trinity.
‘While the schools are very good, a lot of them are gravitating towards the Division 1A teams. There are seven Dublin teams now in the top division of the AIL.’
A former Monkstown player and coach himself, Courtney is full of pride when he talks about his local club.
No, they might not be able to compete with AIL juggernauts such as Lansdowne, Terenure, Clontarf, St Mary’s and Old Belvedere, but Monkstown are making their mark.
This is a club with a rich history, a deep sense of community and an ambitious vision for the future.
After 20 years in the wilderness of junior rugby, Monkstown FC returned to the AIL ranks in 2024. And they intend to stay there…
Monkstown are back in the All-Ireland League after 20 years of playing junior rugby
MY KIND OF TOWN
‘We were in the AIL for the first six or seven years and we actually won the old Division 4 and then Division 3,’ Courtney recalls.
‘We were up in Division 2 at one stage, but it’s very difficult to maintain a lot of that.
‘Then you get relegated out of the AIL, but trying to get back is hugely difficult. The Leinster League is so strong. It’s a tough league to win. You’ve got teams like Suttonians, Seapoint, Tullamore, Athy. They’re not easy games to win but we did it and got back up.
‘We’ve finished fifth for the past two seasons.’
Donal Courtney is tackled by mistake by Mike Blair while refereeing an international between South Africa and Scotland at Kings Park in Durban in 2006
There is optimism about the years ahead for this youthful Monkstown side, who are back in action against Buccaneers at Sydney Parade in Division 2B South this afternoon.
It’s been a tough start to the campaign with losses to Clonmel, Old Crescent and Midleton in the opening rounds, but the 31-16 victory against Bruff was a glimpse of what this current group can deliver.
The young coaching team is headed up by the highly-rated Paddy Thornton who, at age 31, has already worked with the Connacht and Leinster underage setups as well as Terenure College.
Thornton was a good get and he is ably assisted by former Connacht and Munster back Danny Riordan and Babs Dowling.
Like every amateur club across the country, it’s all the who keep the whole operation ticking over.
‘There’s optimism, but there’s also a realisation that it’s hard work,’ Courtney adds.
‘As long as you keep your feet on the ground and you understand how important is it to keep the momentum going.
‘Keeping people involved in the club is really important as well. Volunteering is everything. It’s difficult to get volunteers. When you get them, you need to keep them.’
As our chat winds to a close, Courtney recommends that we give David ‘Manners’ Mahon a call.
A Kildare native, Mahon has made a huge impact at the club. He was club president last season.
Before that, he was director of rugby for four seasons after serving as head coach for the best part of a decade.
Monkstown Minis enjoying themselves at half time of the Champions Cup Leinster-Edinburgh match at the Aviva stadium earlier this year
HOME AWAY FROM HOME
‘I had no affinity to Monkstown whatsoever, other than I played against them,’ Mahon recalls,
‘Any of the decent rugby I played, I played for Bective, who are now are our biggest rivals.
‘The great irony of ironies is I coached Newbridge to beat Monkstown in a promotion play-off to get from Division 1B of the Leinster League to 1A.
‘Newbridge beat Monkstown in Westmanstown, in the Garda club, to get promoted. I think it was in 2008. Then, in 2012, I coached Monkstown to beat Newbridge in the same playoff.
‘My first year in Monkstown, I relegated Newbridge, having coached them for years. It’s mad how it actually happened. The same two teams and I was on the other side of the fence in each playoff.’
After almost 20 years in the Leinster League, Monkstown broke back into the big time in 2024 thanks to hard-fought win against Ballyclare in an AIL play-off final.
A fine achievement but Mahon is keen to talk about this club’s fascinating origin story.
‘The reality is, considering where we are, we wouldn’t be one of the more fashionable clubs.
Soldiers on parade in 2022 during a ceremony to mark the centenary of the handover of the Curragh Camp in Co Kildare from British to Irish Forces – Monkstown RFC had strong links to the British army and then to the Irish army over many years
‘Historically, Monkstown had a massive connection with the British Army in its origins. We have a war memorial there in the club, 78 members of the club were killed in the first World War.
‘It’s actually more now because the club spent four years researching it and they’ve actually established a lot more. I think there’s a new memorial to go up. I think it might be in excess of 100.
‘Then with the foundation of the State in 1921, that British Army tradition transitioned into the Defence Forces so there’s a huge connection with them.
‘Ironically, the end of the Troubles in the north of Ireland actually coincided with Monkstown being relegated from the AIL because there was less and less personnel in the Defence Forces.
‘As a consequence, that draw started to wane a wee bit. We only got back up (to senior rugby) three years ago.’
The senior team is currently in a state of transition. Mahon points out that of the 20 players who featured in the AIL opener against Clonmel, only five were at the club the previous season.
‘The club has had to reinvent itself a bit,’ he says.
‘We don’t have an affiliated school per se. We’ve really championed this idea of we don’t really care where you’ve come from. We don’t care what your background is.
‘Other clubs in Dublin would have affiliation with a school. We don’t have any of that, but we’ve kind of flipped that and made that one of the real positives about Monkstown.
‘It’s got a fantastic social scene and it’s kind of become a home away from home for people.
‘We’ve had a lot of lads from overseas. There was a guy who played for a us a few years ago who is now actually fighting against the Russians over in Ukraine.
‘When we got promoted, he sent us a post from the frontline. It pretty much sums up Monkstown. A real eclectic mix of all sorts. That’s what you get here. Lots of characters.’
Mahon is very proud of what this club has achieved in recent times. That’s only half the story, mind.
There’s a few things you probably don’t know about Monkstown. Mahon takes up the story.
‘I’m a big believer in trying to understand the DNA of a club. Some of the players who lined out for Monkstown, there’s some phenomenal stories.
‘Basil Maclear is in the World Rugby Hall of Fame. He was inducted in 2014. He played for Ireland at the turn of the last century. He was killed in the First World War sadly.
American tennis player Richard Norris Williams (left) and Ireland’s James Cecil Parke, a Monkstown RFC legend, at the International Lawn Tennis Challenge (later Davis Cup) in Wimbledon, London, England, July 18th 1913
‘The other is James Cecil Parke which, to me, is arguably one of Ireland’s greatest ever athletes. And nobody has ever heard of him.
‘If you went into a table quiz and I was to say to you, “name the Irish man who won an Australian Open tennis singles championship?” It was James Cecil Parke from Monaghan.
‘He played cricket for Ireland. He won an Olympic tennis medal in the 1908 Olympics in Paris. He has a Wimbledon doubles title. He played rugby for Ireland. I think he might have been an international golfer as well.
‘This guy was phenomenal. This is all part of the history and heritage of what makes Monkstown.’
It would seem like perfect material for a stirring pre-match team talk?
‘Unbelievable,’ Mahon adds. ‘I used it one day in one of our derby games against Bective and it worked a f****** treat!’
Jimmy Ferris, who now heads up the minis and youths at Monkstown, in action for Connacht against Leinster in Donnybrook in 2000 – his father, Jim, played for the club over four decades
GENERATION GAME
Sydney Parade is a hive of activity on Sunday mornings. The club’s minis and youth section is absolutely thriving these days.
James Ferris, a former scrum-half with Connacht and Leicester Tigers, has done sterling work at the grassroots for a long time.
‘I head up the youths and minis down there. It kind of fell by the wayside about 20 or 30 years ago,’ he says.
‘My thing was if you don’t have that, if you don’t have the structures coming through, you’re really at nothing as a club.
‘I’d say maybe 10 years ago, we started out on our minis journey, and we’ve over 250-odd kids down there on a Sunday morning, right through from U5s to U15s.
‘We had 270 parents and kids at the Leinster v Munster match recently. The idea is that we keep that group going right through to U20s and then beyond.’
Monkstown have not been able to field an U20s team for the best part of 10 years but that will surely change in the years ahead.
Ronan O’Gara with Monkstown Minis promoting the Aviva Mini rugby festivals in 2022
‘There’s a lot of competition in the area,’ Ferris notes.
‘It’s something that we probably would have historically struggled with being kind of a poorer relation in D4. We always kind of batted well above our weight across all the teams.
‘It’s as much trying to be more of a community side. Monkstown always would have had a great name for welcoming guys from Cork or Limerick or all over the country.
‘We’d be a bit of a country club in the middle of Dublin 4, if that makes any sense.’
It certainly does. Ferris comes from good stock. His father, Jim, was a cornerstone of the Monkstown pack for decades. Legend has it that his stellar club career spanned four decades in blue and yellow stripes.
‘Well, it’s a bit of a mystery because I came in at the end in the 60s and I went out in the early ’90s. So I claim to have been playing over four decades,’ he chuckles.
‘My claim to fame is that I’m the oldest man ever to have played in the Leinster Senior Cup Final. I was 44 at that stage.’
That defeat in 1990, with Wanderers prevailing 9-3, remains the one that got away. Jim Ferris was packing down at prop. Courtney missed the game due to a broken collarbone.
The memories are now hazy but they remain warm ones for Ferris Snr.
‘I actually retired when I was in my late 20s. And I missed it,’ he says.
‘There was plenty of fun in the game. You met people, you had a few pints. You had a bit of craic.
‘Then I just said, “what the hell, what am I going to do?” So I went back.’
It seems to be a recurring theme with this club. People, from all walks of life, tend to walk through the gates of Sydney Parade. And they rarely leave.
This afternoon, Jim Ferris will be in his usual spot.
‘At the end of the ground there’s a nice little bench. There’s two or three of the elder lemons,’ he says, with a big laugh.
At the end of the ground there’s a nice little bench. There’s two or three of the elder lemons,’ Jim Ferris laughs
‘It’s a lovely ground. It’s a very sociable club. We’re hoping we can build on that because we don’t have a feeder school.
‘We’re depending on people coming from around the country because they know they’ll be well greeted and entertained. Once you get them in, you try to hold onto them.’
The likes of Ferris and his son, Courtney and Mahon are testament to that.
‘Too many good friends down there,’ the elder Ferris concludes.
It sounds like that kind of club alright. A proud history and an exciting future ahead.
