Club History
Blainroe Golf Club was the brain child of Christy Cooney, a Dublin builder who dreamt of building a small village resort type complex consisting of a group of houses, golf course, shops, tennis courts etc., his vision and ideas were way ahead of his time as Blainroe was one of the first of its kind in Ireland.
The golf course was designed by the internationally known Surrey golf course architect, Fred Hawtree. Construction commenced in 1974 and the course was opened officially on the 21st July 1978. In fact the first competition was played there by thirty founder members. They played for a large copper plate and the signatures of all the players was inscribed on the trophy. The winner was our second President, Tom Nagle and is on display in the club trophy cabinet.
The Cooney family owned the golf club in the early days, but in 1984/85 they offered to sell the club to the members and although the purchase price was attractive there were a number of clauses included in the deal which made it unacceptable to the members. In 1986 the Cooney family sold the golf course and club house to the consortium of Swissair and International Golfing Residence. The members of Blainroe golf club immediately opened discussions with the new owners, and by February 1987 they appeared to have reached agreement. A seven year lease was agreed upon at the meeting but never materialised.
The club continued to pay an annual lease until the end of 1988, when they were informed that 91% of the course and clubhouse had been sold by the consortium to Euroactividade—The Lichtenstein Registered Timeshare Company. In April 1989 Euroactivadade sought to disband the club and offered £400.000 as a goodwill gesture, to enable the club to buy and develop a course of its own. The club refused the offer and threatened to take the matter to the High Court. Euroactividade eventually accepted that the club had three years of a four year lease still to run and they handed over the £400.000 contribution, to be put towards the acquisition of a new course and clubhouse. The members, however, were still anxious to maintain their standing and wished to be allowed continue playing on the Blainroe course. Eventually on the 15th March 1991 under the Captaincy of John Quirke, and after many months of difficult negotiations, Blainroe members finally bought the Course and clubhouse for £1.5 Million plus £100.000 for the additional forty two acres which now serves as a practice area.
Owning the club created its own momentum and over the following years the members rallied round and completely renovated the Clubhouse. The course was re-designed by Martin Hawtree, son of the original architect and fully opened to play in 2005. The greens are now sand-based, more bunkers have been introduced and the golf course is very challenging. It is now recognised as one of the finest golf courses in the south-east of Ireland and in 2007 was rated in the top 100 courses in the country.
