JP fondly remembered by Curry
MEMBERS and friends of Curry GAA were pounding the pavements from south Sligo to Ruislip and back on Saturday in memory of their late manager, JP Duffy on what would have been his 55th birthday.
JP’s family and GAA friends organised the Run to Ruislip to raise much needed funds for the charity Croí. Initially the target was set at €5k but by yesterday afternoon the club had well surpassed that with €40k raised and counting.
It was a mammoth club effort and people around the world, from the UK, USA and Australia were eager to join in and support the event in memory of JP, who died suddenly last November.
His daughter Aoife told The Sligo Champion they are in awe of the support from people. “It’s been flat out all weekend! The support has been unbelievable, there was a big push on the day and the target had been reached even before the day itself.
“The support has been class, especially on social media which I was doing for the club on the day, it was flat out for 24hours.”
Not only was she busy keeping everyone updated on the progress throughout the day, Aoife and her cousin were the first to get the run going at midnight on the day.
“Both myself and my cousin Colin Brennan were the ones to start it at midnight.
“Colin was also part of the fundraising committee and my 2 brothers, Éanna and Patrick were the ones who finished it. In total, we did 1503km, which was phenomenal. At about 5pm that evening we put the call into the club’s ladies and men’s teams to do another few kilometres so everyone was back out in the dark!
“There were 3 lads as well who had done a marathon and even considering the heat of the day went back out again too, the support was just unbelievable,” Aoife added.
The parishes of Curry and Moylough, which Curry GAA club comprises, really went above and beyond. “There were families along the roads with waterstations and the atmosphere was just amazing.”
There were silent auctions for a signed Dublin 5-in-a-row jersey,the football from the Curry ladies Connacht championship win in 2007 and also a signed Donegal jersey, which in total raised close to €4k for the fundraiser.
Aoife said Tony McGovern in London who runs a Trust over there also kindly donated £2,000 from the Trust.“We have more than €40k with the silent auction and the GoFundMe page will be open until the end of the week. It is just phenomenal really.
“The initial target was €5k and we said if we should get between €20-€25k that would be great but to get this much is incredible.
“We have received so much support, Joey Byrne, dad’s friend who donated the Dublin jersey, someone said they would donate €500 if he wore a Mayo jersey and he went out on the day in the jersey and cycled to Croke Park! Someone else got in touch when they heard about the fundraiser and saw a picture of dad with their Beetle in the Mayo colours and gave us the lend of their car for the day which was very generous of them.”
Although with the Covid-19 restrictions in place, the likelihood of having a big presentation celebration will be put on hold for the time being, the club is hoping to have a big occasion in the future.
“We can’t have a presentation that we would like to have just yet and make an occasion of it but we definitely will do something later on with Croí”
Aoife said the day couldn’t have gone any better. “So many people were posting videos, the kids were running and cycling, there were flags up everywhere, it was really like a County Final day, dad would be immensely proud,” she added.
GoFundMe/ Curry’s Run to Ruislip in memory of J.P Duffy