Saints Rising: New early history of St Patrick’s Athletic launched
Dermot Looney and Brian Kerr at the launch night of Saints Rising in McDowell’s, Inchicore

Saints Rising: New early history of St Patrick’s Athletic launched

The Early History of St Patrick’s Athletic Football Club in Inchicore is the first book ever written on the history of one of Ireland’s greatest football clubs, called Saints Rising, reports Abigail Glynn.

From their formation as a team of young railway workers playing in the Phoenix Park to the golden era of League of Ireland titles and FAI Cup success, St Patrick’s Athletic rose like no other club in Irish football.

This book charts the history of the club from its formation in 1929 through to the end of a decade of extraordinary League of Ireland success in 1961.

It is the first book on the history of St Pat’s, ‘the Pride of Inchicore;’ a Dublin institution with one of the great rags-to-riches tales in Ireland’s sporting lore.

For the first time it tells, in book form, the tales of Pat’s and Irish football legends like Shay Gibbons, Ronnie Whelan Snr, Harry Boland, Ginger O’Rourke, Dinny Lowry and a host of other well-known and lesser-known Supersaints.

It looks at the history of the club’s early grounds, including their beloved home of Richmond Park, and the place of ‘the Athletic’ in the proud history of Inchicore and the wider community.

Saints Rising was compiled over four years via newspaper archives, club memorabilia, interviews with players and fans, and a range of other historical sources.

The book was written by Saints fan Dermot Looney, a former County Councillor and Mayor of South Dublin who works as a teacher in Tallaght.

The book’s foreword is by former Ireland football manager and Pat’s legend Brian Kerr, who helped launch the book with over 100 people attending at McDowell’s, Inchicore earlier this month.

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