Rathvilly Gaelic Athletic Association is a

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

and

ladies' Gaelic football Ladies' Gaelic football () is an Irish team sport for women. It is the women's equivalent of Gaelic football. Ladies' football is organised by the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association. Two teams of 15 players kick or hand-pass a round ball toward ...

club based in

Rathvilly Rathvilly () is a village, civil parish and townland in County Carlow, Ireland. The village is on the River Slaney, near the border with County Wicklow and County Kildare, from Tullow and from Baltinglass. It is also on the N81 national sec ...

County Carlow County Carlow ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county located in the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region of Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. Carlow is the List of Irish counties by area, second smallest and t ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

History

The club was founded in 1888. The teacher Edward O'Toole was the first captain of the club; he was a member of the

Irish Republican Brotherhood The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB; ) was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland between 1858 and 1924.McGee, p. 15. Its counterpart in the United States ...

(IRB) and an early influence on

Kevin Barry Kevin Gerard Barry (20 January 1902 – 1 November 1920) was an Irish Republican Army (IRA) soldier and medical student who was executed by the British Government during the Irish War of Independence. He was sentenced to death for his part in a ...

. Rathvilly won its first Carlow Junior Football Championship in 1916. In 1979 Rathvilly were promoted to the

Carlow Senior Football Championship The Carlow Senior Football Championship (currently also known for sponsorship reasons as the ''Michael Lyng Motors Carlow SFC''), is an annual Gaelic football competition contested by top-tier Carlow GAA clubs. The Carlow County Board of the G ...

In 1983 they founded their juvenile section and won their first county championship; since then, they have won eight more. Rathvilly play at Fr. Ryan Park; in 2019, they received a €14,455 grant for floodlights. The club crest displays the

motto A motto (derived from the Latin language, Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian language, Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a Sentence (linguistics), sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of a ...

''bene cultō nīl ōrnātiu'' This is

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for "well cultivated, not ornate," and is derived from

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

's ''

Cato Maior de Senectute ("Cato the Elder on Old Age") is an essay written by Cicero in 44 BC on the subject of aging and death. To lend his reflections greater import, Cicero wrote his essay such that the esteemed Cato the Elder was lecturing to Scipio Aemilianus and G ...

'': ''agro bene culto nihil potest esse nec usu uberius nec specie ornatius'' ("nothing can be more bountiful for use, or more ornate to the eye, than a well-cultivated farm"). It also displays images of

Saint Patrick Saint Patrick (; or ; ) was a fifth-century Romano-British culture, Romano-British Christian missionary and Archbishop of Armagh, bishop in Gaelic Ireland, Ireland. Known as the "Apostle of Ireland", he is the primary patron saint of Irelan ...

, Rathvilly Moat, St. Patrick's Church and Rathvilly Bridge over the

River Slaney The River Slaney (; ) is a large river in the southeast of Ireland. It rises on Lugnaquilla Mountain in the western Wicklow Mountains and flows west and then south through counties Wicklow, Carlow and Wexford for 117.5 km (73 mi), ...

Honours

Gaelic football

(10): 1983, 1985, 1990, 1991, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2014, 2021, 2024 * Carlow Intermediate Football Championship (2): 1973, 1978 * Carlow Under-21 Football Championship (7): 1981, 1982, 1990, 1992, 1993, 2005, 2007 * Carlow Minor Football Championship (5): 1982, 1988, 1990, 1993, 2004 * Carlow Junior "A" Football Championship (7): 1916, 1967, 1984, 1989, 2004, 2009, 2013 * Carlow Junior "B" Football Championship (1) * Carlow Junior Ladies Football Championship (1): 2015

Notable players

* Brendan Murphy * J. J. Smith

References

External links

Facebook page
Gaelic games clubs in County Carlow Gaelic football clubs in County Carlow {{Leinster-GAA-club-stub