Date posted: 8 August 2018, 1:17pm

Paul Sherwood, Brian MacManus and Mags Wolahan discuss the project.

The late George Crawford, former Captain of Killiney (1983), was always interested in history and a chance meeting in 1978 with a manager from Guinness, led to him persuading Guinness to sponsor a book to detail the history of Killiney Golf Club.

 

 


With the backing of the Committee, he set to work:

  • Checking through all the old Record Books and Minute Books, compiling the relevant information;

  • Advertising in the Newspapers, requesting any former members to contact him with memorabilia;

  • Visiting old members, receiving their mementos and recording their memories;

  • Meeting ex caddies, seeking their recollections of the club and club members.

The beautiful leather-bound book donated by Guinness was soon filled with a treasure trove of interesting articles and old photographs.
 
Brian MacManus, was engaged to photograph the then current dignitaries, teams and competition winners and Brian has continued, to this day, to record each event at the club with his lovely photos.   Before long a further book was needed in 1991 and then another in 2008!

 

1903-1990

Sponsor: Guinness Group Sales (Ireland) Ltd

 

1991-2007

Sponsor: Guinness Group Sales (Ireland) Ltd

 

2008-

Sponsor: A. A. Insurances

 


For many years George’s wife, Jean, took care of the layout and captions – a considerable undertaking.   She was glad to hand over the baton to Mags Wolahan, who has continued the impressive presentation of the Club’s History Books, now on permanent display in the entrance hall of the Club.

The "Keepers of The Book". Jean Crawford and Brian MacManus

 
These magnificent books, containing hundreds of articles and photographs, have being digitalised by photographer Paul Sherwood and his daughter Mia.

Paul Sherwood at work. He set up a portable studio in the Ashling Room. A digital image was made of every page, followed by an image of each exhibit, individual document and photograph. The work took several days. The resulting images were checked and corrected on a computer for orientation and where necessary straightened and cropped by Paul. The collection amounted to 4,175 photographs.

The books are now available on the web site. You have access to them at any time.

The job is not yet finished. There is still a considerable amount of work involved in categorising and captioning the images. Some of the digital versions of older documents and press cuttings are difficult to read on screen. Hopefully, some of these will be re-typed and converted into PDFs for increased legibility on screen. The originals will always remain in place, in addition to the PDFs. Over the next few weeks we will try an improve the speed and clarity of the display.

Click here to view the on line version of The Books.

There is a permanent link under The Club on the main navigation bar. The Club > The Book. You need to log in to gain access.

Enjoy.

Peter Bennett