County champions, Erin’s Own Cargin celebrated another successful season with a presentation evening in their clubrooms on Friday night where County Treasurer, Angela Callan was the guest of honour.
The Toome club collected another Senior Football Championship title in 2024 and added the Division 1 Reserve League title but the biggest cheer of the night went to the LGFA team who won the division 3 league and the Junior B Championship.
Barry O’Donnell presented Maureen Creelman with the Ladies Hand-Baller of the year before giving an excellent update on the rapid growth of handball within the club
Cargin Handball Club
Cargin now have 3 One Wall handball courts. There probably isn’t a day in the week where someone isn’t using them…it’s that popular.
Our main competition court is reputed to be the best wall in Antrim if not in all of Ulster where players come from far and wide to play on.
We have over 40 kids playing each Satruday morning. That’s not to mention both our local schools Moneynick Primary and Toome Primary both coming in each week to play handball.
We also have 30 registered ladies players with about 15 playing each week and 30 registered men with about 10 playing each week.
Our members have attended multiple tournaments this past year.
In the Antrim Slam in Belfast Padraig Graham got narrowly defeated in his final and the sisters Una Cassidy beating Maura Creelman in their final.
Our ladies also played in headquarters with 10 playing in the She’s Ace competition in Croke Park.
We have close ties with Dungiven handball club and North Coast Handball Club (in Portrush) where our members compete against each other in friendly competitions.
Our biggest accolade last year has been our representation at the worlds handball competition in Limerick. We had 10 ladies and 3 underage competing at the highest levels, all wearing their cargin jerseys with pride.
From that competition:
Kate Laverty & Una Cassidy got to the doubles final of the ladies challenger.
Martina Gribbin & Maura Creelman made it to the over 40s doubles final.
Maeve Cairns and Amanda McGarry reached their semi final.
Maura Creelman just lost in her singles final.
It was great to see so many supporters making the trip and waving the Cargin flags.
With our profile now firmly in the handball circuits we may be asked to hold a Slam in May which will be the only Irish venue to host the European tour.
Club person of the year – Peadar McCann.
Peadar was heavily involved in our 2023 centenary celebration nights and the author of our Centenary book, ‘Clann na hÉireann – 100 Years of Pride & Passion’.
Club Aidan Johnston presented him with the Patsy Kelly Memorial cup.
Ronan Devlin presented Kevin McShane with Senior Player of the Year & Conan Johnston with Young Player of the Year.
JC Devlin presented Jack Harney with Senior Reserve Player of the Year.
Angela presented the Senior Reserves with their Div1 Reserve league medals.
Dermot McPeake presented Oran Johnston with the Div2 Reserve Senior Player of the Year award.
Gareth Scullion presented the LGFA Senior Player of the Year to Róisín Quinn & Angela Callan presented the Senior LGFA team with their Division 3 league medals & Junior B championship medals. They were unbeaten last year and will play in Division 2 and Junior championship this year.
Stephen Magill announced Sarah O’Neill as senior camogie player of the year. Sarah was unavailable.
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