All-Ireland Scór finals in Killarney.   

Our dancers take centre stage this weekend as they travel to Killarney on 2 April to contest the All-Ireland Scór final in the Rince Foirne or Figure Dancing competition where they will dance The Trip to the Cottage. It’s a journey that began in 1976 when Seán Nolan called down to Newlands and invited Detty Cornally to organise a team for the dancing competition. The meeting began what has proved to be forty years of the club’s association with Scór driven by Detty Cornally and her team of helpers. It also began a long family tradition with the GAA’s cultural wing; the late and much lamented Rob Cornally acted as county secretary of Scór, so too did Detty’s sister Rose Longworth and Mary Doolin (nee Cornally) is currently Westmeath’s county secretary.

Shamrocks coached by Ena Mullen won its first figure dancing Leinster title in 1980. Noel Battle supplied the music. Peter Glennon, Sheila and Colman Moynihan, Shirley and Margaret Mullen, Danny Devaney, George Coyle and a certain Patsy Rylands who happens to be one of the coaches of the current Leinster champion team danced. The Leinster final was staged in the Gaiety Theatre and the All-Ireland finals were held in boxing’s National Stadium. This time was something of a golden era in Westmeath Scór as twenty-three clubs contested the county competitions; four semi-finals were staged. Shamrocks qualified for the final from a group of Clonkill, Multyfarnham, Castlepollard and The Downs staged at the County Hall with the county finals held in St Mary’s CBS. 

‘Steeped in the tradition of the club’ and ‘The GAA is family’ are two of the great clichés associated with the GAA but are entirely appropriate to describe our current Leinster champions. Mary Doolin and the above mentioned Patsy Rylands are in charge of choreography. Uncertainty surrounds the number of county and Leinster titles won by Mullingar Shamrocks in Figure Dancing, what is certain is that Patsy Rylands has had a hand or foot in all of them. Mary has had an association with most of the titles also. Most of our dancers have a long association with the club. Mary Jo Geraghty began dancing in Scór na nÓg and has never gone away; the Murphy sisters - Sarah and Katie - are nieces of Tommy Reeves who was a panellist on the Mullingar Shamrocks team that won the club’s first county senior title in 1964; Maura Buckley was recruited to the Shamrocks cause by Detty Cornally some years ago and once this happens there is no escape; Síle-Marie and Aileen Martin are nieces of that man of many Scór talents, Paul Doolin – Shamrocks Mr Scór; Geraldine Cornally has married into the family and like Mary Jo Geraghty has numerous Leinster and county titles to her credit; Kim Darby was a spectacular winner of the Mullingar Rugby Club’s Strictly Scrum Dancing last year; Kim’s first cousins Killian and Sean and her uncles Kevin and Aidan Daly have contributed substantially to Shamrocks as players, coaches and administrators for many years. So let there be no doubt: the GAA is family.

The team is wished the best of luck in the final and hopefully the long over-due All-Ireland title in this discipline will finally make its way to Springfield and Mullingar. Westmeath clubs will be well represented in Killarney and all are wished the best by Mullingar Shamrocks.