The Island Golf Club enjoys a unique setting bordered by sea on 3 sides. A classic links course set in a rugged terrain & nestled between the highest sand dunes along the east coast. Only 15 minutes from Dublin Airport and 30 minutes from Dublin City Centre, The Island is favourably located in the remote and tranquil Estuary of Donabate & Malahide.

- Host to The Amateur Championship in 2019 with Portmarnock Golf Club
- Regional Qualifying Course for The Open Championship 2013-2017

The Island Golf Club, founded in 1890, is a traditional private Members’ golf club with a proud history of upholding the best traditions of amateur golf. Overlooked by the North County Dublin village of Malahide, the links is located in some of the most stunning dunes on the east coast of Ireland. It is also one of the oldest golf courses in Ireland and was ranked 13th in Golf Digest Ireland’s Top 100 Courses in 2015.

It enjoys a growing international reputation and currently hosts Regional Qualifying for The Open Championship and will co-host stroke play qualifying for the British Amateur Championship in 2019.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ISLAND GOLF CLUB
The Island Golf Club was founded in 1890 thus making it one of the oldest golf courses in Ireland. Besides being one the first twelve golf clubs founded in Ireland, it is the third oldest in Dublin and predates Portmarnock Golf Club by four years. The club was unique in that it had no military connection and was initiated as a private proprietary club. The ten founder members, known as the “Syndicate”, only permitted others to join the club on an annual basis as annual ticket holders. Most of the members of the “Syndicate” were already members of The Royal Dublin Golf Club which was founded in 1885. However, The Royal Dublin Golf Club forbade golf on Sundays and this rule was not to the liking of members of the “Syndicate”.

“In September 1887 four men rowed across the channel which separates the North Dublin village of Malahide from the spur of land to the north known locally as the Island. Their mission was to survey the wilderness and assess its suitably as a golf links.”

The visionary boat journey is thus described in the history of the club “A Century of Golf on the Island”. Besides referring to one hundred years of golf played on the links between 1890 and 1990, the “Century” part of the title also alludes to the cricketing term for “one hundred not out” to draw attention to a cricket match in which the legendary English cricketer W.G. Grace played in the early 1900s on the present eleventh hole, now known as “Cricket Field”. Incidentally, W.G. was allegedly bowled for a “duck” which is a cricketing term for “no score”!

Once the “Syndicate” had negotiated a lease of the land with the Cobbe Estate, a local landowner was engaged to mow the fairways and greens with a scythe in preparation for a mowing machine. The early course, comprising eighteen individual holes, was laid out generously in terms of land as the founder members, precluded from any serious earth-moving, followed the valleys between the sand hills. The course has altered several times since that time, however, to become the championship course of today.

The original clubhouse, a quaint wooden pavilion, was situated at the far end of the links and overlooked the Malahide estuary. It was abandoned when the boat service to and from the links was discontinued in 1973. The present clubhouse dates from this time and is sufficiently well-appointed to host major amateur tournaments as well as meeting the needs of the members and the many visitors who come to enjoy the links.