Weeshie’s love for football, the GAA and even match commentary all started at his beloved Legion club
by Jason O’Connor
LEGION CHAIRMAN FERGAL MOYNIHAN
WE were all devastated to hear of Weeshie’s death so soon after that of Niall McGuillicuddy. They are two deaths at opposite ends of the spectrum but ones that are very hard to deal with since I became Chairman of the club back in May.
Even though Weeshie has not been visible in the last two years his presence certainly has been felt by all of us as he has kept in touch via e-mails to us all with his daughter Denise also secretary of our club.
I first remember Weeshie as the U-10 and U-12 coach moving up along with teams and I think he had this great ability to make you feel good about yourself even if you had a bad game. He was always positive and had great skills of communication. I remember Weeshie and Seán Counihan working together to train our senior team to Division 1 of the County League in 1993 when we beat Dr Crokes in the final and winning the Club Championship Final the following year against Waterville.
He wrote our history A Legion of Memories and even though he became prominent outside the club and indeed the county with his work for Radio Kerry, the important thing was fame never changed him.
He would come up to our Juvenile Academy on Saturday mornings and he loved keeping track of players who caught his eye and seeing where they developed from there.
He presented a Terrace Talk special from the club in 2009 when the then President of the GAA Christy Cooney was in attendance and I know that show meant a lot to him. The important thing now for us as a club is to make sure we honour both Weeshie and Niall in the right way when the time comes to do so.
SENIOR TEAM SELECTOR ENDA WALSHE
ONE thing over the last two years that was noticeable was that even though Weeshie was not in the limelight and been as active as he usually was, he still wanted to keep up with what was going on. He would regularly want a DVD of our games to be dropped into him at home and you would always get a bit of feedback from him after on what he thought about the game.
The extent to which people knew him through his work in the media is amazing, particularly to those who knew him in our club primarily just from being involved in the club. I know he promoted us well every chance he could and that the 2014 All-Ireland win for Kerry meant a lot to him as it was the first time more than one Legion man was on an All-Ireland winning team with James O’Donoghue, Jonathan Lyne and Brian Kelly all involved.
On the playing side he is one of the few people in the club with an O’Donoghue Cup medal from 1967 and what a lot of people might not know is that an internal club tournament might be where his commentary career started. We had a tournament in the club called the Pat O’Meara Memorial and the semi-finals and final were filmed with Weeshie commentating on the matches for the video.
Let’s just say his commentary was a bit colourful because the standard of play was not necessarily what you would see in Croke Park!
His personality suited the role of a PRO I think with the ability he had to communicate things.
The one thing his death tells us is that GAA is only a sport and life supersedes everything when you think about his and Niall McGuillicuddy’s death so soon after each other.