We would like to thank our good friends from The Sunday Night Club for their sponsorship of Friday evening’s game with Finn Harps.
The group, which is made up of Gussie Hearty, Padraig McKeown, Brian Larkin and Roy Mackin, ran the Sunday-night entertainment in the Lilywhite Lounge from 2008 to 2020, continuing a tradition that was started by the likes of Barlow Rafferty, Seamus Tuite, Joe Conroy and Tom Moran many years ago.
“We ran the Sunday Night Club every Sunday for 12 years until COVID came along,” said Gussie Hearty. “We’d hold a raffle every Sunday night and we’d use the takings of that to buy things like boxes of sweets for Mother’s Day and Christmas.
“Back in 2008, Paul Johnston asked us to sponsor a game and we’ve been doing one ever since. The money that we had left over in the kitty from 2019 and 2020 has enabled us to sponsor Friday’s game with Finn Harps.”
Sunday night used to be the culmination of a busy week in the Lilywhite Lounge. Board and social club meetings, along with the club lotto, would draw the crowds in on a Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday was pool and bingo night respectively while fundraisers and private parties filled the remainder of the schedule.
Sunday would often see the club bar packed to the rafters – especially when the League of Ireland fixtures were played on that day – and even though the advent of Sky TV and the Premier League saw Dundalk’s games shifted to first of all a Thursday, and now a Friday night, that didn’t stop the craic on a Sunday!
“Like most places, we had to stop the Sunday Night Club because of COVID,” said Gussie. “We had some great nights. At this moment in time, we don’t know if it will come back but we will always continue to help the club in whatever way we can.”
