No court, no limits: Maigh Cuilinn’s remarkable 60 years
From a village without a home court to national trophies and Irish internationals, generations gathered to celebrate the people behind an extraordinary sporting story
A club without a court should scarcely have survived. Cumann Cispheile Mhaigh Cuilinn spent the next 60 years proving otherwise.
Around 160 former and current players, coaches and volunteers gathered at the Galway Bay Hotel on Saturday night to celebrate six decades of achievement.
Generations who had worn the jersey, coached teams and kept the club going behind the scenes came together to mark a story stretching back to 1966.
Among the guests were Moycullen parish priest Fr Martin Whelan and Galway West TD Seán Kyne. The evening was hosted by Timmy McCarthy, a 2023 Basketball Ireland Hall of Fame inductee and RTÉ Olympic and Paralympic Games commentator.
There were no awards and no fundraising drive. The anniversary dinner was about the people who built the club.
“We don’t have the facilities, but we have brilliant people,” chairperson Cian Nihill told the gathering.
Basketball, he said, had become part of Moycullen itself.
“I don’t think it’s a transplant into the fabric of the community. It’s part of it.”
Committee member Sarah McNamara said that connection had become a source of pride.
“It’s just a unique identifier for the village itself,” she said.
That identity took work to build. When Gerry Nihill arrived in Moycullen in 1986, the club had one men’s team and no juvenile structure.
Barbara Walshe persuaded him to get involved, with Kitty Canavan, Seán Hynes, John Cunningham and others helping to develop juvenile basketball.
“It comes down to people,” Gerry said. “All you need is one, two or three key people who can drive it. Others will come in then.”
Once the children had a team, they needed opponents. Club members helped establish a Galway juvenile league and travelled further afield in search of games.
Gerry remembers Sunday buses carrying around 40 children to Sligo and Longford as they created their own Connacht League. One early home game convinced him they could aim higher.
“I thought, ‘Yeah, we can do something.’ We weren’t just going to be a club that was playing locally. We could do something at a national level.”
For John Cunningham, the absence of a home court may even have helped shape the club’s character.
“We had to travel everywhere to play, to train. You got the more committed people and you got people who were willing to make bigger sacrifices,” he said.
“Not that you’d choose not to have a gym, but maybe it did help us. Maybe we worked a bit harder, put more effort in.”
Another thread running through the club’s history is its Stephen’s Day Blitz, which continued even during leaner years for competitive basketball in Galway.
“When the Galway League died, or the teams weren’t playing All-Ireland, the blitz always went ahead,” John said.
The club claims it is the longest-running basketball blitz in the country.
“It’s outdoor, it’s Stephen’s Day, it’s a little bit mad,” he said. “It kind of captures that Maigh Cuilinn difference.”
Seán Hynes who coached generations of young players, remembers the under-17 girls’ team winning the triple. Yet his greatest satisfaction came from watching those players progress.
“Seeing kids that you coached at a very young age make it onto National League teams, representative teams, Irish teams, Super League teams and so on,” he said. “That’s the great kick, genuinely.”
Decades later came national trophies, Irish internationals and homecomings players have never forgotten.
For Dylan Cunningham, the defining memory of the club’s under-20 Cup win and senior National League Cup success a year later was the journey home from Dublin.
“The memory was jumping off the bus outside The Forge to a sea of everybody from the village,” he said, recalling “bonfires at every stop all the way out from Galway”.
Those victories belonged to more than the players on the court. Behind them were coaches, parents and volunteers finding halls, arranging travel, raising money and making sure the next generation had a chance to play.
Now, after six decades without a permanent home, the club is looking towards a new chapter.
“The next chapter is to play at home,” John said, “to try to build what we built without a home, with a home.”
Timmy McCarthy captured the spirit of the night in his closing message.
“You’ve got to be the best individual you can be and then be the best teammate you can be. And that’s not easy.”
For 60 years, Maigh Cuilinn has found people willing to do both.