Now is a great time to shine a light on community champions

THERE are many heroes right across Fermanagh, people who work tirelessly for their community day in and day out helping to make where they live a better place.

We hope to recognise some of those heroes as part of our Community Champions Awards which will be hosted later this year, especially those unsung heroes. See Page 4 for an entry form to nominate your community champion.

One local community hero who needs no introduction is Joe Mahon – the hotelier from

Irvinestown who is one of the shining examples of what it means to be a community man.

Working with others as part of the Lady of the Lake Festival is one of the key roles he plays in his town, as well as being a most welcoming host to those who enter the premises of Mahon’s Hotel which he runs with devotion alongside his siblings Paul and Aisling.

A one-man PR machine, Mr. Mahon has put his beloved home town on the world stage and has raised almost £1million for the town since his father started the Festival back in 1978.

Mr. Mahon’s marketing genius means that Irvinestown is never too far from the headlines, and he has mastered the difficult art of coming up with something new every summer and often the ideas are more outrageous than the year before.

He is the subject of this week’s ‘Up Close With’ where he is interviewed by Gerry Mclaughlin.

Mr. Mahon’s portrait is perfectly captured by John Mcvitty and the interview features archive photos from across the years of some of the antics of Mr. Mahon and other members of the Lady of the Lake committee.

Elsewhere, another community is mourning one of its heroes. Yesterday, Donagh said goodbye to Tony Cannon, a devoted groundsman for St. Patrick’s GFC.

Mr. Cannon was described as being at the heart of his community.

He took pride in looking after the club grounds, and the club said that there wasn’t a match where he didn’t line out the field, or cut the grass on the banks beforehand.

Fittingly, the club’s colours – white and red – draped Mr. Cannon’s coffin as he was carried into St. Patrick’s Church, surrounded on each side by a guard of honour formed by members as those in the community are now left to mourn their loss.