TWENTY years on from their creation, North London Shamrocks have achieved the ultimate success story. They broke the stranglehold of Fulham Irish, Tir Chonaill Gaels and St Kiernan’s to claim a first-ever London Championship title last season.

The year 2005 was when the club first came into being. Two struggling clubs came together to create North London Shamrocks and it’s been on the climb ever since. There’s been plenty of lows across those two decades, but many memorable highs as well.

A founding member of the club, Keith Egan, moved across the Irish Sea in 2004 and like many others who had to leave the Emerald Isle, finding the welcoming arms of the GAA community was a way of keeping in touch with home.

“We were formed in 2005, and we are an amalgamation of St Treasa’s and Shannon Rovers, the club I was part of for just one year before it folded,” Egan explained. “We managed to merge players and personnel to form North London Shamrocks.

“We’ve been going fairly strong for the last 20 years. We won the Intermediate Championship in 2014 and then we won the Senior Championship for the first time ever last year and we’re hoping to repeat that again in 2025.

“I’ve been part of the Shamrocks from day one, I’m a founding member and I’ve been in London now just over 21 years, I came over in 2004. I had planned to be here for a few years and go back home but I’m well settled now and have two children here.

“A good friend of mine Gearoid Duffy, he was living here, and it was him that put me into contact with Shannon Rovers at the time. I played with them for a year before we merged with St Treasa’s and became the Shamrocks.

“Like a lot of Irish, you’re trying to get that home from home as soon as you can and the GAA is definitely a great way of doing that.”

The Intermediate triumph certainly wasn’t an overnight success story. There were a series of near misses and tales of what might have been before they eventually smashed through the glass ceiling in 2014.

They fought hard after that at the top tier, hoping to land the big prize someday. And when club stalwart Thomas ‘Tosh’ Kilcommons passed away in 2023, there was a promise made that the club would do everything in it’s power to honour his name.

“When we first joined the London scene in 2005, we were put into the Intermediate Championship and there was a lot of so near yet so far. Most years, we got to the semi-finals, and we reached the final in 2008,” recalled the Donegal native.

“We were 11 points up with five minutes left and we drew the game and then got hammered in the replay. We kept going and kept going and thankfully in 2014 we managed to get over the bump and move up to senior and we’ve been there ever since.

“Again, it wasn’t too dissimilar to intermediate. We reached quite a few senior semi-finals but never got to the final. The London scene is dominated by three very good clubs, Fulham Irish, Tir Chonaill Gaels and St Kiernan’s.

“Those three have been the dominant forces since we’ve been up in senior and every year it’s been won by them. But one of our founding members, Tosh Kilcommons, he tragically passed away in August 2023.

“At his funeral, needless to say the beer was flowing and the tongues were rolling, and we promised that, for one year, we would do what we could to try and achieve something in his name.

“We had quite a few lads on the committee that have good contacts back in Ireland and we were able to pull a few new players over and strengthen our team and we won that championship in his honour in 2024.”

Egan isn’t the only northwest native to link up with the Shamrocks. Last year’s championship team was full of Donegal men. Managed by 2012 All-Ireland winners Peter Witherow and Michael Boyle, the team had a strong Donegal connection.

“To have their name as part of the club has been of huge benefit to us,” added Egan of Witherow and Boyle, while pointing out the other counties represented at the club. “The last couple of years, we’ve been pulling more and more Donegal people into the club.

“The team that started the 2024 final, I think ten of them were from Donegal and then three came on as subs so there’s a huge Donegal influence at the moment, which is great. You’ll find a strong Donegal accent around any clubhouse; it’s a home from home.

“We have a few Derry men as well. Conor McKelvey, Ruairi Rafferty, he was the man of the match in the final last year. We had a couple of Armagh men as well, Seamus Hughes and Dara McKenna, but both have moved back home at this stage.

“We had a Down fella, James Kelly, who played for Down when they reached the All-Ireland U-20 final a couple of years ago. We have a Monaghan man here at the minute, Ben McKenna. Peter Mallon from Tyrone as well so we had quite a few Ulster lads.

“We take people from anywhere and everywhere and we’re delighted to have anyone. We have three teams so it’s not just the senior team, we’re a club that invites everyone and anyone to be part of it. We’re trying to promote the gospel of the GAA to everyone.

“We’ve got ten youth teams, mixed boys and girls and we have an affiliation with Holloway Gaels and they’re the current (Ladies) London SFC winners as well. At the moment, the club is certainly thriving but we’re always looking for people and the more the merrier.”

Winning the Senior Championship was the perfect way to celebrate 20 years in existence but the club have plenty of events to look forward to as well. They invited Donegal legends Karl Lacey and Paul Durcan to their dinner dance back in March.

Now they’re hoping to organise a ’20-hour match’ to mark the occasion, but not everyone is keen on the idea.

“There’s some that are encouraged by it and happy to do it and there’s some that mightn’t be fit to give us 20 minutes never mind 20 hours,” laughed Egan.

“It’ll be a great integration between the teams because an u-7s’ point in their game will be the equal of a senior score. So, the u-7s will split into two teams and play and we’ll do that the whole way up and we’ll combine all the scores and see who wins.

“It’s a bit of craic and I think it’s a great way for a young fella or young girl to get involved and see the importance of playing and seeing that their contribution to the match is as important as anyone else.

“It’s in the pipeline but I’m what you would call a stubborn man, so I’ll make sure it happens one way or the other.”

In the short term, the club will hope to defend their crown this summer and retain the title but, on the whole, growing the club and building from the bottom up are the goals for the future from Egan’s perspective.

“The say success breeds success so at the top level, the fact that we won last year, it’s definitely put our name on the map but to be honest, I always come from the other end and I’m a big believer that promoting the youth is just as important.

“Trying to get that foundation in the club (is crucial) because it’s not always going to be as rosy as it is now so I would say success is continuing to build the numbers. Last year, we reached the u-15 and u-17 finals.

“We had eight of last year’s u-17s in the London born team that we have now. The long-term goal is to continue to increase our youth numbers and create that conveyor belt so they can become regulars at senior, with both the men’s and the ladies’ teams.”