The Railway & Steampacket Athletic and Social Union (“Railway Union”) was originally formed in 1904. The club is a run on a not for profit basis and provides a wide range of sports facilities to individuals both young and old within the community.
The club is very much a community based club with a family based and family friendly ethos. The club seeks to keep access to sport and recreational facilities affordable and hence its finances are set very much on a break even basis. The club makes its facilities available to schools, community groups, local residents and other organisations to support events which they arrange or host.
The club has a strong desire to invest and improve our facilities yet as a not for profit club with affordability at its core, the club simply is continually challenged with the need to reinvest in its playing facilities to support the variety of sports it provides. The multi sport nature of the club means that it provides sporting facilities across multiple different surfaces (not a single sports field supporting multiple sports) and this leads to a continuous cycle of reinvestment and refurbishment of our playing facilities.
The club’s grounds are located in Sandymount and are designated under the 2022-2028 Dublin City Development Plan as lands for sporting and recreational facilities under the heading “Amenity / Open Space Lands / Green Network”.
We provide our members, local schools and community groups with the facilities for bowls, cricket, hockey, rugby, soccer, tennis and bridge. All of these sports are located on the club’s grounds in Sandymount.
The sports club currently has over 2,000 active members including over 1,000 youth and underage members playing the wide variety of sports within the club. Alongside these 2,000 active participating sports members, we have 1,000 additional members and individual users of the club’s facilities.