President congratulates Wicklow on their Review
UACHTARÁN Cumann Lúthchleas Gael Aogán Ó Fearghail was the special guest on the night at the Garden County GAA Stars awards at the Arklow Bay Hotel.
MC for the evening Jimmy Dunne introduced the GAA President and highlighted how he had had the pleasure of working with Mr Ó Fearghaill on the CCCC in Croke Park.
The Cavan native took to the stage and paid tribute to Jimmy Dunne, saying that the AGB club man was an “even-handed, fair and an excellent Chairman, and he was indeed a credit to all the Gaels of Wicklow and I’m glad to renew acquaintances with Jimmy and I thank him for that excellent stewardship during his term as Chairman of the CCCC. Thank you, Jimmy,” he said.
Mr Ó Fearghaill thanked the organising committee for the invitation and he said that he was always glad to be celebrating volunteers because that is what the GAA is about he believed.
“I’m delighted to be with you, always glad celebrating volunteers – That is what we are about in the GAA. And it is nice, on occasion, to stall, to stop and to look at somebody and to say “thank you”, and that’s what you are doing here tonight and I think it’s a proper and a fitting and a correct thing to do. Because whether you’re in Wicklow or Dublin or Kilkenny or in Donegal, the same effort goes into keeping your club going and your county teams going. Your Wicklow hurlers and footballers, the club players in all of your 39 clubs in Wicklow, they all put in the same effort, and the volunteer on the sidelines puts in the same effort, and it is important that occasionally that is acknowledged.
“We have in the GAA almost 2,000 GAA clubs on the island of Ireland, 39 of them are here in Wicklow. And the GAA would never have survived if we looked at the obstacles. If the seven men who gathered in Hayes Hotel in 1884 had realised the problems and the challenges they’d have packed up, went for a pint and gone home, because we’d never, ever survive in this country if we were always whinging and complaining and saying we can’t do things,” he said.
The GAA President congratulated Wicklow GAA on their Review and said that it was important to have plans.
“Tear them up, throw them away if they’re not working, but for heaven’s sake have one. You have a great base in Wicklow, you have what a lot of other counties don’t have – you have people. I come from a county with just under half the population you have. Monaghan, my nearest neighbours, who we like to pretend we like but we don’t, we love to beat the daylights out of them, and that type of attachment is what spurs you on in the GAA. We’re always very proud to be where we’re from. And even though we’re from a small club, small population, or we’re from a county with a difficult tradition, it doesn’t matter. You are from where you’re from and you never forget that,” he said.
The GAA President went on to congratulate the organising committee for having awards for ladies football and camogie and he confirmed that there will be motions going before delegates at Congress next month to “show very directly that we are coming much more closer together with ladies football and camogie into one Gaelic games family for all. That is the future. It’s where we need to be as an association,” he said.
Mr Ó Fearghaill also revealed to the large crowd in the Arklow Bay Hotel that the GAA will be holding a wonderful event to celebrate volunteers in a few weeks’ time and one of Wicklow’s finest will be honoured on the night.
“I’m also glad to say that in two weeks’ time in Croke Park we will have a wonderful event to celebrate the volunteers of the GAA. And we will have people from all across Ireland and some from outside of Ireland where we’re able to say that these are outstanding volunteers. And I’m thrilled that one of those is none other than Jackie Napier of Wicklow. Well done to you, Jackie,” he said.