Noble volunteering

Sir — Jamesie O’Connor’s article (Sport, Sunday Independent, September 11) summarising a typical underage camogie match evening was masterful.

And it will surely resonate with every father in the country who has, at sometime or other, ferried a daughter and her friends to a camogie match. That a former hurling great, sports journalist, TV pundit and full-time educator of renowned ability makes time to manage an underage camogie team for his local club would probably come as no surprise to those who know him.

I’ve never met Jamesie O’Connor but how fortunate we are to have his likes in our communities. Being able to share a good-humoured joke with the young girl who turned up for a match minus a hurley and helmet shows his sense of fun, perspective and ability to engage. I suppose being a dad of girls this age and a natural communicator makes this easy for him.

What Jamesie could not have been expected to know is that the young lady in question had earlier spent a few hours sorting Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann 2016 volunteer T-shirts, by size, in a community hall in Ennis prior to being collected. Of course, her mam, dad or grandad would ordinarily have brought her to the game with all the gear in tow. But then mam had overall responsibility for the recruitment, selection, training, deployment and support of the 1,500 registered volunteers who underpinned the success of the Ennis Fleadh that week and, I guess, the alternative arrangements omitted the usual quality check for hurling gear.

What really struck me about all of this though was people interaction and the noble selflessness of volunteering. Jamesie, young Niamh and her mam all volunteer and all make enormous contributions to their community. Michael Foley Chairperson, Clare Volunteer Centre, Kilrush Road,

Ennis