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Welcome to the Home Page of APGS  (An Post Golf Society)

 

Membership of the Society is open to all current employees and retired staff members of An Post and its subsidiary companies.  Members must be attached to a golf club affiliated to the Golfing Union of Ireland or to the Irish Ladies Golfing Union and hold an official handicap.   All outings of the Society are held under The Rules of Golf and local rules of the host club.

Outings: Using a new format from 2014, the Society will hold eight outings, including the President’s and Captain’s Prizes.  The winner of the Captain’s Prize also receives the Con Kennedy Cup.  Con, who died in 2004, was an influential member of the society and of Birr Golf Club, who presented a memorial cup to the Society for competition on its Captain’s Day.  Members will also compete for trophies commemorating Jim Sheehan and Michael Fallon, both of whom were distinguished late members of the Society.

Championship: The Society’s first six outings will determine the qualifiers for the An Post Championship, which will now be held annually in September.  Qualification for the Championship will be determined by the results at each of the individual outings.  Each outing will qualify a specific number of players, based on the total number of competitors during the season.  The first four outings will each qualify a minimum of ten players. The President and Captain’s prizes will each qualify a minimum of 15 players.  The numbers turning out at each outing will decide the gross/nett split of qualifiers.

In 1993, under the initiative of the Chief Executive and then President of the Society John Hynes, the An Post Golf Championship was launched.  In its original formulation, qualifying rounds were held around the country leading to a grand final, usually held in May.  The first final was held at Co Sligo Golf Club in Rosses Point on, according to one soaked participant, the wettest day in living golfing memory.  Rosses Point remained the Championship final venue for a number of years and subsequently it was held at Lahinch, Slieve Russell and Athlone.  The Championship was originally conceived as a strokes event.

For nearly 20 years the winner the Championship has also received the Gus Meinert trophy, which was presented to the society in memory of the low handicap Canadian golfer who worked in An Post on a consultancy basis and who later died tragically.

 

History: The Society had its origins in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs Golf Society, which was founded in 1926.  The Society was mainly HQ (GPO) based with a number of members from around the country.  It had a number of outings each year and included were competitions for the Walshe Cup (presented by the first Minister for Posts and Telegraphs) and the O’Hegarty Cup (presented by the first Secretary of the Department).  Neither of these trophies is currently in the possession of the society.  The Society continued in its original format and continued until January 1984 when the Postal and Telecommunications divisions were separately created as commercial State companies.

The An Post Golf Society came into being early in 1985.  In that year Willie Short, a postman in Birr, retired with the unique record of having served 45 years without a single sick leave day.  He appeared on the Late Late Show with Tommy O’Riordan, the Head Postmaster of Birr.  A couple of weeks later, the Chief Executive of An Post, Gerry Harvey visited Birr to make a presentation in recognition of Mr Short’s achievement.  During the visit he discussed with Tommy O’Riordan the prospect of founding an An Post Golf Society and persuaded Tommy to run with the idea.

Tommy was aided by the late Con Kennedy and Senan Corbett both based in Birr.  Mick Fallon, also based in Birr, was later persuaded to be Secretary of the Society, even though he didn’t play golf, and he continued in that role for many years.  Others involved from the outset were Jim Sheehan in Gorey, Steven McGuinness in Enniscorthy and the late Seamus Quigley from the Roads Section in the GPO.

Gerry Harvey donated £750 of An Post funds to help start the Society.  The Society did not initially have a formal President, although Gerry Harvey would have been considered to have held that position.  He also donated a trophy, to be played for annually, the Harvey Trophy.

The first outing of the Society was held in May 1985, in Bray which was the home club of Seamus Quigley, the Society’s first captain.   Two other outings were held in that first year, one in Birr on June 8 and the other in Athlone on September 28.  In subsequent years, a pattern emerged of holding the Captain’s Prize in Birr in September on the Saturday between the All Ireland hurling and football finals.  Other popular venues included Athlone, Roscrea, Tullamore and Roscommon.  Tommy O’Riordan was captain in 1986.  Other captains during the early years included the late Con Kennedy, Steve McGuiness, the late Jim Sheehan, Dessie Madden and Jim Kavanagh.

The first formal President was Sean Keogh who ran the Sub-Post Office in Clarecastle, outside Ennis.  He served until John Hynes took over in the early nineties.  Terry Reynolds then took over from John at a later date and subsequently handed over to the current President John Foley in 2007.