1921 Commemorative Jersey
1921 Kildare Senior Hurling Championship – Celbridge Centenary Win Remembered
Fr Fogarty blew the final whistle shortly after 4pm, and with that, the Celbridge supporters within the large crowd in attendance at the Dominican College grounds in Newbridge that late April Sunday afternoon in 1923, cheered their victorious hurlers.
Draped in white and green, Celbridge had just won the club’s first Kildare Senior Hurling Championship with victory over the home team, St Conleiths by 4-2 to 0-1. It was of course historic times in more ways than one, with the backdrop to the match being the War of Independence and the Civil War which had intervened to delay the conclusion of this 1921 championship by two years. In fact, the Civil War was not to formally end for another month. The match was played on Sunday 29th April 1923, just a single day before Frank Aiken (IRA Chief Of Staff), who had only recently assumed the role after the death of Liam Lynch on the 10th April, declared a ceasefire on behalf of the Anti-Treaty forces. The Civil War formally ended on the 24th May when Aiken gave the order for Anti-Treaty fighters to “dump their arms” and return home. This was the immediate context of Celbridge’s first Kildare SHC victory.
Both teams it is believed wore green and white in the 1921 final. St Conleiths wore a green jersey with white sash while Celbridge players donned the opposite – white jerseys with green sash. Many clubs at the time wore colours with either a sash or hoops. Celbridge hurling colours changed over the years to red and black and finally the current blue and white. St. Conleith’s eventually was subsumed into the current Sarsfields GAA club which of course still wears the green jersey with white sash.
Celbridge GAA have recreated the magic of this win, the Club’s very first senior county championship, by bringing to life a replica of the jersey worn by the heroic team.
