Our History

 In the early 1900s, possibly as early as 1906, Miss K.E. ‘Girly’ Pemberton started a sports organisation for girls and named it Grangegorman Gym Club after the area of Dublin where their training hall was located. At the time, many Christian organisations were starting to use physical activities and games as a way of promoting Christian beliefs among the young. Miss Pemberton was influenced by the Church of Ireland ‘Boy’s Brigade’ and was involved in the founding of several of the first ‘Girls Brigade’ clubs. She founded Grange at the tender age of fourteen with the aim of ‘getting children off the street’ regardless of their religion. 

Grangegorman Gym Club practiced dance and put on shows and displays. When the ‘powers that were’ realised that there were Catholic girls involved, the Church of Ireland Grangegorman hall suddenly became unavailable. Miss Pemberton moved the club to new premises in Suffolk Street and changed the name to ‘Grange Gym Club’. Miss Pemberton’s continued to run her club even after she formally retired as administrator in 1980. 

In 1947, Miss Pemberton approached her work colleague Sean Heritage to start an artistic gymnastics program for boys under the Grange Gym Club umbrella. Sean had learned gymnastics from his physical education teachers in school, who had learned their gymnastics in their previous professions in the Irish army. Sean developed a strong team of boys, although the equipment and space limited their progression. Sean travelled around Europe to attend coaching courses. In 1964 he was one of the founding members of the Irish Amateur Gymnastics Association (IAGA), and brought foreign coaches to Ireland to being a coach education program. Sean retired from Grange in 1970 due to family commitments, handing over his club to an up and coming coach named Michael Scott. Sean was still active into 90s, with ballroom dancing being a particular past time. 

Sean sadly passed away in 2017 but his torch has been carried into the current day. 

Michael Scott suffered a challenging injury in his mid-teens, which meant that he couldn’t continue to participate in Sean’s gymnastics class for some time. At Sean’s suggestion, Michael began coaching forward rolls to the younger boys, a journey which ultimately led to him achieving the highest coaching standard possible and sending a Grange gymnast to the Olympic Games. After his first coaching course in the UK Michael became ‘hooked’ and set about building an artistic gymnastics program in Grange. Upon qualifying as a secondary school teacher, Michael began working in O’Connell’s school, where he started a second gymnastics club while still coaching in Grange. By 1977 it was obvious that the gymnastics component of Grange could not develop in a small hall Michael merged his two clubs, forming a single Grange Gymnastics Club based in O’Connell’s school. Here, Michael was provided with funds for equipment from the school, which was supplemented by fundraising from his many coaches, parents and volunteers.  

Grange lost its home in O’Connell’s school in 1980 and spent a year almost homeless, training once or twice a week in a classroom in a school in Finglas where they could mostly only do conditioning. In 1981, Grange found new homes in St Kevin’s School on Ballygall Road East in Glasnevin and at the Holy Faith Convent in Glenmaroon. Over the next ten years, Michael and his coaches developed Grange to a high standard, winning many competitions at home and in the UK as well as competing at World and European Championships. In 1989, Grange lost its home in Glenmaroon and set up shop in a hall in St David’s school in Artane. This was the first time that Grange had its equipment set-up full time, which resulted in considerable progress being made. Michael retired from Grange in 1990, leaving behind a considerable legacy. 

In 1996 in Atlanta, Michael’s protégé Barry MacDonald became the first Irish gymnast to compete at an Olympic Games. Barry had joined Grange back in O’Connell’s, training with Michael for many years before taking a sports scholarship to train full-time at the University of Chicago. In 1995, a team primarily composed of Grange gymnasts competed at the World Championships in Sabae, Japan. This was the first and only time a full Irish men’s team achieved this. The Sabae team project was designed to support Barry MacDonald’s attempt to qualify for the Atlanta Games, and to provide a much needed boost for the sport in Ireland. This plan was the brain-child of Colm Murray, another protégé of Michael’s, who coached in Grange for many years. 

After Michael Scotts retirement Grange was administered by many dedicated people during the late 90s and early 00s in the interim including Pat McGrath, Edel, Ann and Denise Trimble, Colin Casey, Rachel Cheung, and Kevin Corrigan.

 In 2012 Grange was forced to move home and came very close to closing. Grange was moved to a new home in Santry, where the club trained for 3 years before moving to our current full time facility in 2017. During this period we had become regular fistures at national events and were placing highly in Trampolining, Men's Artistic and Women's Artistic Gymnastics

  The gym steadily grew here in it's current facilityuntil the onset of Covid where we shut the doors not knowing if we would open them again.

 With a massive effort and reorganization from the administrators of the gym, Grange was able to come out of Covid and start the process of rebuilding the gym back up to it's previous heights.