Fairways of the Sea – 100 Years of Golf at Rosslare 1905-2005

Founded in 1905, the club initially began as a 9 hole course set on a peninsula and has been plagued by coastal erosion since its inception. The strategic placement of rock revetments and groynes of rock in the nineties have helped alleviate the problem and the redepositing of sand from offshore land banks have reclaimed some of the lost foreshore. The founding father of the golf club was James J. Farrall (M.R.I.A.I.) a well-known architect and engineer from Dublin and included the Slieve Donard Hotel amongst his many accomplishments. Farrell purchased 433 acres of the Boyd Estate together with Rosslare House on a 999 year lease and set aside 58 acres for an 18-hole golf links which were designed by George Baillie who stayed at Kelly’s Hotel. James J. Farrall had overextended himself with the purchase of the Boyd Estate and the following year had declared bankruptcy and the lands put up for sale in four lots.

The land was eventually bought by a syndicate led by W.E. Hewat (a coal and hardware merchant) probably, despite his status as a bankrupt, at Farrall’s direction and recommendation. In 1908 the club, which had started as a proprietary club with Farrall calling the shots became a members club and the clubhouse, Rosslare House, became a holiday home for the Hewat family. Large parts of the original course have been reclaimed by the sea as coastal erosion chipped away at the coastline through the years. At the beginning Hewat was against giving the lands to the golf club and it was only the actions of W.J. Kelly (Kelly’s Resort Hotel formerly the Rosslare Hotel) and William Paul Bart R.M. that convinced him to renew the lease in the intervening period the links was falling into disrepair. The amount of work involved necessitated the need to move back to a nine-hole course after Hewat had agreed to lease the land. The new clubhouse was a small building in the grounds of the Kelly’s Hotel. Cheap tickets were offered on the Great Southern and Western Railway and competitions often began not long after the train arriving at Rosslare Station.

In 1911 W.C. Pickeman was brought in to remodel the course at a cost of £50 and by 1913 they had decided to extend the course to 18-holes but WWI, Civil War and War of Independence intervened. By 1922 they tried to proceed with the extension only to be thwarted by other tenants and in the end the matter was sorted when Hewat put up the lots for sale in a way that would extract the maximum proceeds but fortunately the club was successful in its bids for the required lots, albeit with a grazing rights stipulated for neighbouring land owners, including Rosslare House. Hawtree and Taylor were commissioned to design the new 18-hole layout at a cost of £15.15s and the course was officially opened on 7 June 1928 by Lionel Hewson. While changes and improvements were to follow down through the years, that original design by Hawtree & Taylor can be enjoyed today by the members and visitors playing the ‘Old Course’. The championship ‘Old Course’ is consistently rated in Irelands Top 100 courses. A traditional links which uses the lands natural contours and coastal sand dunes to shape each hole as you play out the Burrow Peninsula and turn back for home.

During the thirties and forties coastal erosion was high on the agenda for the club and they even engaged John McAllister in 1946 with regard to altering the layout of the course in order to mitigate the advances of the sea. In 1959 they engaged Messrs Colt, Allison and Morrison Ltd to review the effects of the coastal erosion and the club implemented the recommendations of the report produced by Mr. J.S. Morrison. During the sixties the club actively pursued the purchase of parcels of land to compensate for the losses be experienced through coastal erosion.

In 1970 the proposal for a new nine was discussed together with a report from Mr. J.H. Stutt, a golf course architect and subsequently in 1975 both Stutt and Hackett were consulted with a view to modernising the course. Land was continuously being purchased over the next two decades with a view to adding an additional nine holes and work finally began in 1987 with Christy O’Connor jnr. asked to design the new layout. The Burrow course was eventually opened on 12 September 1992 with all the financing coming from the club’s funds. This new nine was partly to deal with the overcrowding but also to future proof it from coastal erosion on the Championship course. The Burrows course was later extended to 12 holes in May 2000.

Notable players and characters in the club included the Ffrench family especially Willie and Dr. J.D. Ffrench who were brothers and accomplished golfers but Willie was the better of the two while J.D. was the backbone of the club for many years and it was him that George Houghton wrote about in his book, Golf Addicts Amongst the Irish. The club has hosted the Irish Men’s (1934) and Women’s (1948,1953,1966) Amateur Close Championship and scheduled to host the Irish Men’s and Women’s Mid-Amateur Open Championship in 2025. The course has been graced with the presence of Henry Cotton, Maureen Orcutt and Alf Padgham amongst others.