Lidl delight Desmonds’ Ladies GAA Club with €1,000 cheque presentation from store

THE presence, on the sporting landscape of the area, of Castleisland Desmonds’ Ladies GAA Club is a real force to be reckoned with. I don’t know of any other in the area to match it for sheer numbers and the vitality of its gatherings.

There was great reason for the force of the turn-out at the Lidl Tralee Road store on Monday evening. It had just been announced that Desmonds ladies club had garnered more votes in a competition run in-store recently. That meant a €1,000 windfall for the club, a boost for its well appreciated efforts with the youth of the area and a great signpost for the future.

“We were thrilled to receive notification lately from the Ladies Gaelic Football Association and Lidl that we had received the highest number of votes in the Lidl Store Club Competition in their Castleisland branch.

“This also meant that we would receive €1,000 in cash funding. We are delighted to have won this prize and thank Lidl most sincerely for giving us the opportunity to take part in their competition,” said a club spokesperson.

The competition sprang from the fact that Lidl and The Ladies Gaelic Football Association announced a new partnership last January. This saw Lidl become the official retail partner to the the association and title sponsors of the Lidl Ladies’ National Football Leagues.

The announcement was made in Croke Park and it resulted in Lidl investing over €1.5 million in Ladies Gaelic Football in year one of a three year deal.

The scale of the sponsorship deal made this the most significant partnership announcement in Irish women’s sport in the past decade.

It was also announced that the company will be title sponsors of the Lidl Post Primary Schools Competitions, the Lidl Gaelic4Mothers & Others programme as well as offering support during the championship.

Monday evening’s presentation to the delighted Desmonds ladies was made by Galway native, Declan Murphy, Lidl Sales Operations Manager Kerry and Deputy Manager, Martin Leen, from Lyreacrompane.

They saw at first hand what the presentation meant to the thriving club and to the grateful hordes which swamped them during the photo shoot.

They were doubly popular as they supplied the young ladies with goodie bags and posed with the all-important Lidl cheque for club photographers, parents and the odd selfie.