History

Tullamore Shotokan Karate Club was founded in 1998

Instructors in the club are Sensei Colin McDonnell 4th Dan and Sensei Enda Rigney 2nd Dan.

There are records of unarmed training systems going back as far as the ancient Greeks and systems of unarmed combat are practised all over India and Asia. Chinese fighting systems, in their present form, have mainly developed since the 14^th century. Chinese traders and diplomats brought their training ideas with them to the island kingdom of Okinawa (between Fukien in China and the Japanese island of Kyushu), where the new systems merged with indigenous Okinawan systems and evolved into karate as we know it today.

Around the turn of the century, karate began to be practised openly and, as Okinawa is a Japanese territorial possession, was exported to Japan. There, karate was influenced by Japanese arts such as kendo and Judo and distinctly Japanese styles of karate began to emerge.

One of these Japanese styles was Shotokan – the karate which is practised by Renshukan Tullamore.

Shotokan karate was introduced to Europe and South Africa in the early 1960s. The Renshukan group started in South Africa in the 1960s and the Tullamore club was founded in 1998 by Brett Halliday, a ex-South African champion and world team champion.