The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Jersey Day at Gaelcholáiste raises importance of clubs
ONE Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí teacher this past week used his own happy memories of his time with the GAA to help promote a different sort of positive mental health initiative in the school.
During the final few hours of the two week Seachtain Na Gaeilge, teacher Eddie Murphy asked all of his students to take part in a ‘Jersey Day’ on Friday as students wore their club jerseys - be it GAA, basketball, chess, soccer, badminton or athetics - into school.
Over 50 students took up their teachers’ call to arms on the day, with golfing shirts, GAA jerseys, basketball clubs and soccer jerseys being the order of the day.
Speaking to The Kerryman in the school on Friday, Eddie could not say enough about the importance of being part of a club or a team in your youth; he enthused at length about both the physical and mental health benefits of being part of an “indirect family” as he called it.
“Being part of a club is vital. It can be any club, it doesn’t matter what it is, the benefits are simply huge - be it physical or mental. That is what we are trying to encourage people to do with this Jersey Day, we want people to get out there and join a club,” said Eddie.
“It develops your personality, it gives you confidence, it gives you something to look forward to in a day or at the weekend. It makes you gracious and it helps you to learn how to accept defeats and losses in lifem which is a huge thing for a young person to learn,” he continued.
Eddie, who was involved in both playing and coaching GAA for many years, says that being part of a club helps people to become part of the wider community, leading to life-long friendships.
“We’re urging anyone out there to join clubs, even something as simple as a youth club, it’s so important for people’s mental health. You don’t have to be excellent at the sport to join in, you don’t have to be inter-county standard, you just have to join,” he said.
“If people can’t relate to their immediate families, then they might be able to relate to their teammates or club mates - it is a support at the end of the day. The importance of this support cannot be underestimated,” he continued.
“Speaking about my own experiences in something like GAA, I mean, going out and playing a match with your mates and coming home on the bus having a sing-song, that’s just amazing. It can’t be replicated,” he said.
This was the first year of the initiative, and while Eddie did not say whether Jersey Day would become a yearly event, he said that he would be very happy to consider the day a huge success if even just one person decided to join a club after the school’s event.