The Meadow
The "Meadow" was the venue for games involving Castlewellan teams, and indeed teams from the area. Few towns had such a wonderful facility, - a field owned by the parish. available twelve months of the year for all those who wanted to play on it. Over the years its Gaelic pitch, with its fairly steep surface, witnessed many memorable games in hurling and football some of them inter-county. The Meadow also had a soccer pitch running across the Gaelic pitch, and it says much for the community spirit in Castlewellan, that no one can remember a clash between the teams using the pitches. The soccer pitch was used not only by the soccer learn, but by the under age Gaelic teams, and for seven-a-side tournaments at the annual sports. Overlooking the pitches was a fine handball alley, which, during the summer months was never idle. But apart altogether from the organised games played in the Meadow, it was a hive of activity on summer evenings, sometimes with three or four footballs going, a crowd around the alley, and perhaps a few hurlers pucking a ball, cricket too was played on the soccer pitch -it was the meeting place for young and old.
It was always known simply as the meadow, and to this day most local people including today’s younger generation still refer to St Malachy’s Park as the "meadow", even though it doesn’t remotely resemble anything like the old meadow. Anyone who grew up in the town in the 50’s and 60’s will recall its former glory. In late Spring it would be a mass of bluebells. If you attended St Malachy’s primary school on the Circular Road, back then, you may recall crossing the road into the meadow for football matches and sports, and for the very young, picking bunches of bluebells for the May altars in the school. At that time too the bog or pond at the bottom of the meadow was a popular gathering spot for youngsters gathering up the tadpoles into jam jars to take back to teacher or to carry home. As summer progressed the bluebells would give way to buttercups, before the big gang mowers would appear to cut down the lengthening grass for the annual sports and seven a side tournaments which drew record crowds back in the 50’s and 60’s
But of course the Meadow had its defects. It was an ideal summer pitch apart from the hill, but in winter it had a very boggy area just in the centre of the Gaelic pitch. Several attempts were made to drain the pitch -none was successful. Talk of levelling the pitch was treated as a joke, and anyway by the time the matter had been fully discussed it was summer again - the boggy patches had dried out, the grass had been cut. The young men were in possession, and the Meadow echoed to the sounds of people playing.
This was the pattern until 1976 when the present club embarked on the ambitious scheme brought to fruition on 30th July 1978 with the official opening of Pairc Naomh Maolmhoig. Of course it must be recorded also, that news of the Clubs development plans for the meadow, was not greeted with universal approval throughout the local community. After all the meadow had once been a parish field which had remained as it was for generations, with everyone claiming some ownership of it, until "hijacked" as some would say by the local GAA Club. It was a sad if not nostalgic day for many, including in truth many of the local GAA people when the diggers and bulldozers moved into the meadow. First demolishing the old ball alley which had fallen in to disuse for more than a generation past, and then levelling the famous slope. No longer would team captains on winning the toss need to concern themselves about weighing up the pros and cons about whether to play up the hill or down the hill first half. The frog pond, scene of many an early summer gathering of schoolchildren, soon disappeared, and finally the hedgerow along the Circular Road (soon after to be replaced by a block wall) fell foul to the digger’s bucket. This latter piece of demolition was not without its black humour, as the ditch on the Circular Road was the vantage point from where a number of local characters, would view the Gaelic games, refusing "on principal" to pay any admission fee into the meadow to watch Gaelic.
Some discontent among a small minority of locals did rumble on for a number of years after the Park opened, but a generation on, local people by and large have embraced the many positive changes brought about by the Club’s development strategy. Upwards of 200 local men women and children train and play Gaelic games in St. Malachy’s Park in the year 2000, and the number is increasing each year. Schools, neighbouring clubs, and County teams also make use of the facilities. Thankfully the Castlewellan Club along with many other GAA clubs throughout Ireland had the foresight back in the early 70’s to realise that the GAA had to compete with other sports, and that their young players had every right to expect the highest standards and facilities from their Clubs.
Although the face of the meadow has changed beyond any recognition from the idyllic days prior to 1970, its spirit is still very much alive and thriving. Indeed had the local club not acquired the land and vested it with GAA HQ in Croke Park, it would in all probability have disappeared long ago, under the auctioneer’s hammer as another prime piece of development land in the centre of the town. As it is and as we face into a new century, the next generation is assured that this sole remaining green field within the town will be there to carry on the great tradition of Gaelic sport in Castlewellan. In the year 2001 the Club is in negotiations with Down District Council to purchase the Council’s Bann Road Gaelic pitch. If the Club is successful, it too will be vested and developed to the highest standards including new changing facilities, as the expanding Club urgently requires a second pitch to service its 18 teams.
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