Naomh Fionnbarra GAA is a Gaelic Athletic Association club in based in Cabra, in the north city area of Dublin.
The club has adult football, hurling and camogie teams.
The Naomh Fionnbarra Hurling Football Comogie club was founded in 1945. The club has been synonymous with Gaelic Games and Irish culture for 65 years in the Cabra Area. The club was set up to promote and develop the Irish culture, language, and heritage through the medium of the GAA. The Primary founders of the club were Jack Casserly, Joe Brady, Ned Wolahan, and Bill Bracken.
The men started by running Roads League for juveniles and later on, they entered the Dublin Juvenile Leagues. The club was the first parish in Dublin to run road leagues which are still being run today. In 1946 the under-14 team reached the hurling final in the '15 Acres' but did not win.
The following year the first trophies were won which were an under-15 hurling league and an under-16 football league. In the early forties, men like Jack Casserly used to sell raffle tickets around the doors for firewood to raise money for the young club.
As the club grew, Seamus Nolan became involved and the club entered a Junior Hurling Team. Seamus was a Waterford man who was one of the first residents on Bannow Road, and the club used his house all through the fifties to hold their meetings. In 1952 the club won the junior D league, in1953 the junior C League, Smith Cup, and in 1954 they won the Miller Shield.
In the year 1958 the club won the B league in hurling. In 1950 Gerry Kehoe (sn) joined the club and worked to get juvenile teams together. Kehoe was an experienced athlete having won a Wicklow minor medal and an All Ireland junior football medal in 1938 with London.
Kehoe worked over many decades, holding all positions in the club both on and off the pitch, promoting and building the club at every level until his death at the age of 69 in 1980.
Larry Kearns joined Gerry Kehoe and together in the late fifties and early sixties, their juveniles teams won two under-15 Hurling Leagues, 16 Hurling league and Minor Hurling and Football leagues.
St Finbarr's School has played a big part in the continual supply of players for the club as far back as 1943, when the school teams became the first primary school to win the hurling and football in the same year. In 1958 the club started a Camogie section and this was run by Jim Byrne and his wife Maureen Byrne. They won an Intermediate Championship in 1958.
The club was considered to be more focused on hurling than football. However, the junior footballers won the Junior Championship and Junior A League in 1961. The team won a football Championship in 1962 and the Camogie section lasted up until 1968.
Under the management of Joe Brady, John Myles, and Ned Wolahan, the team beat St Vincent in Parnell Park. This was the start of what would be called the "Golden Decade" as the club won a number of championships and leagues to go both senior hurling and football in a 12-year period. In 1966 the football team won their way into senior ranks by winning the inter-football Championship.
The Junior Hurlers in 1965 won the junior hurling league and championship. In 1968 the under-13 footballers lost in the A-league final. In 1969 they won the double in inter-championship and league.
The Hurlers won the senior hurling league in 1970 and 1971. In the 73, 74, and 75 seasons the club team won a number of juvenile leagues in under-12, 13 and 14 but lost senior football status in 1976.
At this point, older club members like Gerry Kehoe, Seamus Nolan, Nancy Keogh and John Myles (sn) a number of younger members took more interest in the workings of the club and its teams. Others involved included Mick Brown, Timmy Mullane, Phil Lynch, Joe Glynn, Madaline Kehoe, Paddy Keogh, Joe Casserly, Willy McAuley, Sean Myles (sn), Hughie Flanagan, Gerry Kehoe (jn), Mary Myles, Johnnie Smithers, Nicky Kehoe, and Mick Hopkins.
In 1961 a development committee was set up to gain the club its own clubhouse, with Gerry Kehoe (sn), Donal Massey, and Paddy Dillon as club chairman. The club was offered a piece of land behind the church on Killkearnan Road, but did not have the necessary funds to develop. In 1974 the club committee approached the city council to build a clubhouse on the site of Bogies that now houses the community centre, but were refused.
In 1978 Gerry Kehoe (sn) was the club's representative on the old Cabra community council and the issue of Charleville House came up on the agenda. It was proposed to knock it down as both the Legion of Mary and the Pigeon Club had been using it, and due to vandalism, the building had been abandoned.