The late Eamonn Ryan honoured by GAA with a lifetime achievement award
Water grass hill native Eamonn Ryan has been posthumously honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the 2022 GAA Coaching Conference, in recognition of the impact he had on Gaelic games coaching.
Best known for his achievements with the Cork Ladies Senior football team, that saw him manage them to 10 All-Ireland titles, the community stalwart, GAA legend and retired principal of Watergrasshill National School, also had great success in many other levels of the game. Prior to Eamonn’s involvement with the county ladies, they had won no major honours at either national or provincial level.
In 2014 the Cork Ladies won the RTE team of the year after a public vote that recognised the achievements of Eamonn and all the players.
‘NEVER, EVER HAD AN EGO’
“He leaves a huge legacy,” said GAA President, Larry McCarthy this week. “The most well-known part of it was obviously his involvement with Cork ladies, but I think his legacy is much bigger than that. It’s not just those All-Irelands, it’s the fact that he brought humanity and humility to his coaching role.
“And, as a coach educator, he was able to impart that to others. He never, ever had an ego about it. He was so intuitive and so in tune with the athletes that he had. He was absolutely magnificent,” Mr McCarthy said
Born in Watergrasshill in 1941, Eamonn’s love for GAA was made clear having played with Sarsfields and Glanmire at underage, when Watergrasshill had no juvenile teams. When hurling and football were restructured in the parish, he was highly regarded in both the Watergrasshill and Glenville teams.
Before Eamonn’s 16th birthday, he was junior hurling goalkeeper for Watergrasshill in the East Cork B final in 1961, and in 1968, Watergrasshill won the title with Eamonn as captain and coach.
Following the amalgamation with Glenville in 1961, Eamonn was a key player in the Glenville team that won the East Cork Junior A Football Championship that year. As a player and trainer, he added four more East Cork football titles with Glenville in 1972, ‘73, ‘78 and ’79.
He qualified as a primary school teacher out of St. Patrick’s in Drumcondra and taught in the local school in Watergrasshill, becoming principal there in later years.
As a teacher, he taught everything to his pupils, who affectionally referred to him as ‘The Master’.
THE GAME IS ABOUT THE PLAYER
The late Eamonn was also involved in training tutors to deliver the GAA’s Coach Education programme. His approach was the same as if he was coaching - he was talking to you as a person first and not as a tutor.
He is remembered as someone who loved getting involved in his activities and had a great ability in making everyone feel part of the group and could get the very best out of everyone in the group. His ability to tell stories about life and relate them to the games was noted as one of his great traits. For Eamonn, you were a person first and a player second.
In an interview snippet, shared by the GAA, Eamonn Ryan shared his belief: ‘the game is about the player’.
“It’s always about the player, but the good offshoot about that is that if the coach puts the player at the centre of the process and sort of parts with his own ego, the coach will derive much greater satisfaction, so it’s a win-win situation for both the player and the coach,” Eamonn said.*