Sport
Banagher is most associated with the game of hurling and is home to St. Rynagh's GAA Club. The club was founded in 1961 and represents the parishes of Banagher and Cloghan, with hurling played at Banagher and football at Cloghan. St. Rynagh's has won 16 Offaly Senior Hurling Championships (Sean Robins Cup) and dominated senior hurling in the county from the mid 1960s to the early 1990s. Outside of the county, St. Rynagh's were the inaugural winners of the Leinster Senior Club Hurling Championship, in 1971 and have won the title on a further three occasions, 1973, 1983 and 1994. The club also contested the first All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship final in 1971, losing to Roscrea from County Tipperary. Three St. Rynagh's players have captained the Offaly hurling team to All-Ireland success, Padraig Horan in 1981, Martin Hanamy in 1994 and Hubert Rigney in 1998. A number of St. Rynagh's players have also won All Stars - Martin Hanamy (3), Aidan Fogarty (2), Damien Martin, Padraig Horan, Hubert Rigney and Michael Duignan. Damien Martin was the goalkeeper on the first All Stars team in 1971, effectively making him the first ever GAA All Star.
Banagher schools have won the All-Ireland Vocational Schools Championship on seven occasions. Banagher College were the most recent winners of the senior championship in 2010, with Banagher having won on three previous occasions, in 1985, 1986 and 1989. Banagher also won a junior championship in 1984 and St. Rynagh's Banagher won a junior championship in 2004.
In 1910, Banagher won the Offaly Senior Football Championship title, playing as Banagher.
Soccer is popular in Banagher and the Banagher United club fields teams in the Midlands Senior and Junior Leagues.
A Billiards and Snooker Hall is located between The Shannon Hotel and the Marina and has an active membership. There is a Pitch & Putt couse located adjacent to Cromwell's Castle on the Canal Bank and part of the river on this bank has been enclosed to form a swimming pool. There is also an active Sub Aqua Club in the town.
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Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed,
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o’er the green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“Every American travelling in England gets his own individual sport out of the toy passenger and freight trains and the tiny locomotives, with their faint, indignant, tiny whistle. Especially in western England one wonders how the business of a nation can possibly be carried on by means so insufficient.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
““Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Æschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the d’Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on.
The End”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)