Handball Teams

The Club promotes and provides for the sport of handball within the community. Facilties include a dedicated handball complex with a 4 wall court, an outdoor one wall court and a 1 wall court in the Claregalway Community Centre. On the adult side, our numbers are steadily increasing, and it offers great fitness and social games for all.

 

With a strong emphasis on the expanding juveniles, the club offers regular training in small groups from 7 years all the way up to U-18 with our qualified coaches. There is also a seperate beginner group for those new to the sport which caters for ages 7 to 11.

 

In addition the club organises games for both social and competitive players, male and female, from under 7 years to over 70, and through the club players can enter in to all GAA Handball events during the course of the year.

 

Handball is played all year round, however the club has registration in September and runs juvenile training from late September until Easter.

 

 

The original handball alley was located beside the river and castle since the early 1900’s. The club was not officially registered until 1974 and achieved some success in the county at an adult level and brought home an All-Ireland silver medal from the community games in 1979. The popularity dropped in the 80’s and juvenile training ceased due to low numbers. Indeed there were just a few clubs in Galway offering any juvenile training at that time.

 

Cumann na mBunscol sparked a revival of the sport, and initially coaching of handball resumed within the local schools in 2007. The outdoor alley was knocked in 2009 as part of flood relief works, and while for many they saw this as the end of an era, ironically the club fully revived it’s juvenile training that same year.

 

Within a few years handball had grown in popularity again backed by a team of volunteer coaches and committee. Rewarded by a few juvenile Connacht titles, the standard of handball was increasing each year. The club then brought 25 players to the World Championships in Dublin, 2012 and from there it has never looked back. The club drew up plans for a new court beside the GAA clubhouse and having secured a grant from the Sports Capital Programme, this court was finally opened in early 2017.