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Our Lady’s Boys’ Club was founded in 1940 by Fr Leonard Shiel SJ. The main object of the club was “To provide for the relief of poverty by helping kids in need, by promoting human services which would meet long term means, and by those means to encourage their development and give their lives a dignity which is their birthright.”

When OLBC was founded in 1940, the Government provided no out of school education for young people. There was a great need for social and recreational facilities. Such activity was virtually non-existent in the working class areas of Bohermore, Shantalla, The Claddagh, and ‘The West’. The critical core of the club was (and is) its generic youth club which met (and still meets) several evenings a week. The primary aim in those days was to show the boys ways and means of securing their own destiny.

Mayor of Galway city Councillor Hildegarde Naughton cut the tape and officially opened the new clubhouse for Our Lady’s Boys Club at Sea Road.

The year 1940 was a time of great social change in Ireland, a time when the State gave no assistance to the out of school education of young people, a time of war, a time of poverty. Prospects were not great. Recreational activity for the young of working class areas such as Shantalla, Bohermore, Claddagh, and ‘The West’ was virtually non-existent. The need for a club to provide social and recreational facilities for these people was paramount.