During the early forties, non-sports related events took up the majority of newspaper space. The Irish News gave scant recognition to our national games even though Antrim defeated Galway and Kilkenny to reach the ’43 All-Ireland Hurling final but lost heavily to Cork at Croke Park. In 1946, the centenary year of Davitt’s birth, the club finished joint top of the South Antrim league with Rock However, before the match to decide the honours, encroachments on to the pitch by spectators led to the game being abandoned.
Consequently, the County Board suspended both teams. An appeal was ruled out of order and the club watched from the sidelines for the best part of the following year, ruling out any chance of success on the field. Glory returned to the club as the footballers went through the 1948 Intermediate league undefeated, conceding only one point in total during those games. The Club members gather to celebrate the centenary of Michael Davitt’s birth.
The fifties brought an array of trophies and titles to the Shack. The Junior hurlers defeated Wolf Tones (6-2 to 5-3) to win the ’50/51 South Antrim League title. They were also successful in the Frank Hamill Memorial Cup before defeating Wolf Tones again in October 1952 to take the South Antrim Junior Championship. Earlier that year, the Junior Football League was captured and, at Intermediate level, they strolled through the Corrigan Park Reconstruction tournament.
The intermediate team went through the ’54 league undefeated and repeated this achievement in ’56/57. Remarkably, on this occasion, they again conceded only a single point in total from all their games, mirroring the 1948 team. Through sterling work by John O’Toole and Jimmy McDaid, emphasis was centred on the youth and saw the emergence of a juvenile team, Davitt Og’s.
