St Joseph's GAA Club, Ballycran, referred to mononymously as Ballycran, is a

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sports, amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional Irish sports o ...

club located in Rubane,

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. The club is exclusively concerned with

hurling Hurling (, ') is an outdoor Team sport, team game of ancient Gaelic culture, Gaelic Irish origin, played by men and women. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goa ...

and

camogie Camogie ( ; ) is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women. Camogie is played by 100,000 women in Ireland and worldwide, largely among Irish communities. A variant of the game "hurling" (which is played by men only), it is organised ...

. The club competes in

Down GAA The Down County Board () or Down GAA is one of the 32 county boards of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in Ireland, and is responsible for the administration of Gaelic games in County Down. The County Board is responsible for preparing th ...

competitions and in Division 1 of the Antrim Hurling League. The Club's grounds are called 'McKenna Park' and include the John Mallon Stand (capacity 5,000). While the county football team play out of Pairc Eslar in Newry, McKenna Park is the home ground for the county hurlers, reflecting the dominance of the Ards peninsula in Down hurling. With 27

county championship The County Championship, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Rothesay County Championship, is the only domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales. Established in 1890, it is organised by the England and Wales Cri ...

wins, Ballycran are the most successful hurling club in the county domestically. The club has also won three Ulster senior club hurling championships. the most recent in 1993.

Achievements

Down Senior Hurling Championship The Down Senior Hurling Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the Morgan Fuels Down GAA Senior Hurling Championship and abbreviated to the Down SHC) is an annual hurling competition contested by top-tier Down GAA clubs. The Down GAA, D ...

s: 27 ** 1949, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021 *

Ulster Senior Club Hurling Championship The Ulster Senior Club Hurling Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the AIB Ulster GAA Hurling Senior Club Championship) is an annual hurling competition organised by the Ulster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association and contested ...

s: 3 ** 1974, 1976, 1993

Notable players

* Greg Blaney * Gary Savage * Noel Keith

Notable Residents

* The Multi-millionaire Builder from the north

References

External links

Down GAA siteBallycran web site
Gaelic games clubs in County Down Hurling clubs in County Down {{Ulster-GAA-club-stub