Club Notes | Charleville RFC Celebrates 100 Years

This year Charleville RFC will celebrate their 100-year anniversary. The club has continued to grow from strength to strength to become a very important part of their community. Hear from club PRO Bryan Ruane as he tells the club’s story so far.

The club played its first game of rugby in 1926. Little did that team realise the legacy they would leave behind would be the wonderful club that we have today.

From 1926 to 1986, the club was reliant on the goodwill of friends and various landowners around the area for provision of pitches.

The team played at Railway Road, Limerick Road, and the nearby village of Ballyhea.

When playing on the fields provided by friends, the usual protocol was removing the cattle from the field, lining the pitch and putting up the posts as a team the day before the match.

The club made the Town Park their home pitch from 1986 – 2002. The dressing room for this time was at the back of Eamon Ryan’s pub (now the opening of Dunnes Stores).

There was one tank of water in the showers, and it was every man for himself. If you didn’t get in with everyone else, you were going home in mud!

In 1982 the club ran a monthly draw spearheaded by Eamon Holly, Pa Leahy, Declan O’Connell, Henry Greensmith and Bernie Fox.

Enough money was raised to purchase 7 acres of land in Shandrum and from tiny acorns, mighty oaks were born.

They could have never envisaged the commitment passed on from generation to generation to keep this dream alive as now our facilities in Shandrum continue to improve each year and are open to everybody.

It wasn’t long before the interest in rugby peaked as numbers attending training from outside the town had increased. Teams throughout all age groups were made of people from Ballyhea, Effin, Ballyagran, Newtownshandrum, Dromina and Milford.

With this taken into consideration the club decided to change its name from Charleville Rugby Club to Charleville and District Rugby Club.

The club has many well know players that have moved on to represent the club with honour, among them are John Madigan Snr.

John played for Charleville in the 1970’s was considered an excellent rugby player by his teams and the standard of rugby he played got more of the community interested in playing rugby.

It wasn’t long before John’s talent was recognised and in 1973 lined out for Munster against the All Blacks in a 3-3 draw. Although the scoreline may not appear to be an exciting one, seeing John Snr put his body on the line to prevent the All Blacks from getting more on the scoreboard, left the fans watching this game in amazement.

John Madigan Snr in action for Munster against the All Blacks in 1973

The apple does not fall far from the tree and John’s son, John Madigan Jnr, followed in his father’s footsteps and played with Charleville from a young age.

It was clear to see, even from a young age, that he carried the same traits that his father had, so Munster had no other option but to get this young man on board.

John Junior made his debut for Muster on 5th September 2015 and has since represented Massy, Beziers and currently plies his trade with Agen in France and is having an excellent season so far.

John Madigan Jnr in action for Agen this season

For the 2002/2003 season, Pat Curtain took over the U18 squad and got this group of young men to really enjoy playing their rugby.

Numbers for training continued to increase week on week and Pat realised that he is on the verge of creating a team that will become force to be reckoned with in the future.

Pat took the time to speak to every player individually and reminded them of what their strengths were but also educated them on how to improve on certain areas.

The players took this on board and that season the U18 team became the joint West Munster League and West Munster Cup winners for 2003. The majority of team stuck together for years to come and progressed to the first team for the 2003/2004 season under the guidance of Pa Leahy and Ger Madagan.

That season really stood out for us as Charleville entered the Munster Junior Plate and were ranked as outsiders from the start but with their hard work and dedication, they progressed on throughout this competition much to everyone’s surprise.

Charleville produced the mother of all shocks to get to the semi-final against Garryowen where they really showed the hard work and commitment they put in that season by leaving the Limerick giants scoreless on their home turf with a score of 6 – 0.

Charleville then took on Bandon RFC in Musgrave Park in an exciting encounter and they celebrated the end of this year by winning the Munster Junior Plate by defeating Bandon 7 – 0.

Our coach, Pa Leahy, was a very happy man that day and said:

“This is the proudest day in the 78-year history of our club. Twelve months ago, we were celebrating promotion from the third division. Little did we think that one year on, we would be picking up our first Munster crown.”

Pa was also rich in praise of the team:

“They are a great bunch of lads. I have coached most of them from Under-10 upwards and they have never given an ounce of bother.” A very proud day for the club but the team were absolutely delighted to show than man where all his work went.

In 2008, Eamonn Holly took charge of the first team from Charleville CBS who entered the King Cup.

The school was associated with GAA for many years and had very successful teams during this time, but they welcomed the opportunity to branch out and build a school rugby team.

This was a challenge for the team even before they stepped onto the pitch as they were scheduled to play a number of established school rugby teams. But under the guidance of Eamon, this team produced excellent performances and went on to win the King Cup by beating Villiers School in the final.

John Madagin Jr was part of this team along with David Reidy who went on to become a star hurler, racking up a plethora of All Ireland medals with Limerick.

In 2025, former player Matty O’Neil took over a youthful Charleville first team. His aim for the season was to get this team to enjoy their rugby again after a tough season previously. This youthful side showed a lot of promise but really needed the guidance and experience that Matty had to offer. This team worked extremely well together and continues to grow from strength to strength.

The side finished the 2024/2025 season as Junior Challenge Shield Champions and everybody in the town is excited of what is to come for the team this season.

A lot certainly has been achieved in the last 100 years, and we look forward to what the future has in store for this club

Our former underage player, Ryan McCormack, is currently captaining the Munster U18 Schools team and has also been selected to be part of the National Talent Squad.

Our club currently looks after all underage categories, from minis to senior and we are currently planning extensions to our clubhouse so there is a lot to be excited about.

The success of this club is due to a number of people throughout the years who dedicated their time to help build what we have today.

One name that will come to mind when everyone thinks of the Charleville & District Rugby club is Pa Leahy. Pa unfortunately passed away in 2023 and had a strong influence on a lot of players journey with the club.

He would make sure training and games took place from all underage groups right down from U18 to U8 and all while playing for the club himself.

Pa was a much-loved figure across the rugby community who was held in high regard by other clubs and a lot of the success of this club is down to him.

He will always be remembered as coach, a teammate and most importantly a friend.

His family are doing a great job in carrying on his legacy with his sons, Damien and James involved in the clubs coaching set up, his daughter, Theresa, is the club’s physiotherapist and his other daughter, Karina, is the sports physiotherapist for the Scotland national Rugby team.

Pa Leahy: RIP 1952 – 2023

There will be a number of centenary events coming up throughout the season, such as a Munster holding opening training session at our grounds in Shandrum and our black-tie dinner, which is to be held at the Charleville Park hotel on February 27^th, 2026.

This is an open invitation to anyone and if you are interested in attending, please reach out to the club’s social media pages for further information.