THE STAR CAN ACT AS GUIDE
Duggan’s delighted to have found his way & happy to show fellow dyslexic students that anything’s possible
if anyone is in doubt about the value of an all-star, they should talk to Peter Duggan.
Clare fell at the semi-final stage in last year’s All-ireland Championship but Duggan, the Banner’s prolific free-taker in a breakthrough summer, picked up his first All-star.
Afterwards, his two former schools got in touch with invites for their past pupil.
He started his education at the local Clooney National school but, thanks to the diligent testing of his teacher Louise Fitzsimons, Duggan moved to a dyslexic reading unit in Ennis NS after being diagnosed in third class.
“Clooney threw a brilliant occasion,” said Duggan. “They’d a book made out for me. It’s a small school, there’d only be about 50 kids and every kid would know you. It was cool.
“It was very enjoyable meeting your old teachers. They would’ve known that I wouldn’t have been a great pupil but were all still delighted for me.
“I got asked to go into the reading class in Ennis National. You could see the delight in the kids.
“I was telling them that I didn’t care too much about school then, but that I regret it because school is everything.”
He was in London soon after when he received a text message from a former teacher.
There was a child in the class who had been struggling, but she said that ‘over the last three weeks since you’ve been in, if you’d seen the difference in him...’. Duggan admitted: “It’s little things like that that make you really enjoy it. Hurling can make a difference.
“It’s very humbling, a bit of craic and it’d make you want to drive on to get the All-star again, so you can have a different story for them next year.”
Now 25 and in his sixth year in LIT, Duggan is doing a Business and Sports Masters degree.
“For dyslexia, you have to make more of an effort than others,” he explained.
“It takes a little bit longer to read a sentence, or you get confused when it comes to maths. But if you put your mind to it, you’ll still get it.
“There’s nothing that dyslexic person can’t do.”
Having toiled on the fringes for seven years before last summer, Duggan is not precious about his starting place.
What ultimately matters is that Clare, All-ireland winners in 2013, are successful again.
“I’ll hurl my best and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll be just as happy to see someone else come in,” he said.
“My main concern would be another All-ireland with Clare. I know how much it means.
“If I’m playing and hitting frees, that’s brilliant – an added bonus.
“But I’d be just as happy to get over the line by sitting on the bench.” a