Elm Park Golf and Sports Club will be celebrating its centenary in 2025.

Elm Park has a rich history, and the Centenary will give it’s members and guests the opportunity to celebrate this rich history.

Centenary events and competitions have been organised and it plans to be a memorable year.

Here is a little flavour of the history of Elm Park and the origins of the club we know today.

Elm Park House was an early 19th century mansion with twenty-two acres of parkland, approached by an avenue from pillared entrance gates on Merrion Road. The property was in the ownership of the aristocratic French family until purchased by Mr. Louis McMullen in 1924. The land had some strange and varied uses over the last 150 years, including being used as a Command Grenade School by the War Office during the 1914-1918 War. The outlines of the trenches used in grenade training are still visible on sections of the course. Before they purchased Jones Road for the building of Croke Park, the G.A.A. played matches on the land courtesy of Lord Ffrench, and in the early days of golf, 75 to 100 sheep were grazed on the course from April to November each year!

McMullen set about pursuing his dream of establishing a Golf & Sports Club on the land. He formed the nucleus of his new club by calling on members of the then defunct Stillorgan Park Golf Club which had been wound up due to the advent of World War I and the relative inaccessibility of that club. The prospect of a new golf and sporting venue beside the tramlines on Merrion Road and within a shot of Sydney Parade Railway station was very attractive to Stillorgan's former members and so, at a meeting on October 29^th 1924, the new club was established.

The task of designing the new course was given to Fred Davies, a founder member and first captain of Milltown Golf Club, a prominent member of the G.U.I and a scratch golfer. Davies presented his design for a 9 Hole, 3000 yard course to committee in November 1924. The construction of the course was to be supervised by the newly appointed Professional and Green Keeper, Daniel Mahony who was to be paid £3 per week with accommodation, one of his many duties being the making of golf "sticks" as they were generally known at the time. Among initial expenses connected with the maintenance of the course were the hiring and subsequently the purchase of a horse and cart and also the hiring of two women whose job it was to weed the greens at 4 shillings per day! The annual subscription was 5 guineas p.a. for gentlemen and 3 guineas for ladies. 1926 saw the construction of tennis courts and a badminton hall.