Killeigh And Killurin Join Forces To Form Clodiagh Gaels GAA Club

By Justin Kelly

A new GAA club will come into existence in Offaly in the next few weeks after neighbouring clubs Killeigh and Killurin amalgamated, jointly proposing the formation of Clodiagh Gaels. The decision was taken in the wake of dwindling player numbers leaving both clubs vulnerable to outright extinction.

Both Killeigh and Killurin held emergency meetings earlier this month to give the proposal the greenlight. The merger received overwhelming support from both clubs in the co-ordinated vote, and Clodiagh Gaels will formally become the newest Offaly GAA club when the county board ratifies the move at a meeting on March 10.

A recent note from Killeigh GAA read: “After a busy few weeks of meetings and discussions both Killeigh and Killurin GAA clubs voted resoundingly in favour of an amalgamation, thus bringing into existence a new club to represent the two communities. The hurlers and footballers of the wider Killeigh and Killurin areas will now play under the banner of Clodiagh Gaels.”

This will be the second merger in Killeigh’s history after previously joining forces with Raheen in the 1980s and 90s. It will be the second merger in Co. Offaly in just two years after Ballyskenagh and Killavilla formed one club in March 2013.

Falling player numbers has been a problem in the GAA in the last number of years as the downturn in the economy in 2008 led to mass emigration. The midlands was particularly affected as job losses were more severely felt in rural communities. Young people left for the bigger urban centres, as well as moving further afield to countries like Australia.

The Killeigh statement said that “the disbanding of a GAA club is always an emotional issue,” but it expressed hope for a “smooth transition,” owing to the “close ties between the two communities.” 

“The exploits and integration of the players from both communities with underage Na Fianna teams and school teams in recent years will ease the transition. With plenty of hard work both on and off the football and hurling fields along with the continued good will and support of the wider community, Clodiagh Gaels can be a successful club for generations to come,” the statement concluded. 

Offaly GAA Turns To Croke Park For Financial Bailout

The redeveloped O'Connor Park, Tullamore

By Justin Kelly

Ongoing repayment problems linked to the O’Connor Park redevelopment in Tullamore has led Offaly GAA bosses to request a financial bailout from GAA headquarters at Croke Park.

According to local reports, the GAA’s National Finance Committee recently intervened and will present Offaly with a bailout plan later this month. The Offaly county board recently revealed their repayment struggles, centring on €200,000 in debt owed to creditors involved in the redevelopment of O’Connor Park.

Offaly GAA chairperson Pádraig Boland has said that “O’Connor Park has to be more self-sustaining” going forward, but also re-iterated its potential to do so. “We need to be more focused on that. We have been run like a voluntary organisation, but we need to be more professional,” Boland added.

Boland said he was not casting “aspersions on anyone that has been in control of Offaly GAA before,” and expressed confidence in the ability of the county to get out of the strife currently afflicting its finances. “The people who were here before did very well to keep the ball in the air while playing into a gale force wind but we are where we are and my job as chairman is to lead us out of it,” he remarked. “We need help from Croke Park”, he added.

Offaly are not the first county to encounter financial difficulties in recent years. Kildare and Sligo have both turned to GAA headquarters to request help from the organisation’s central funds.

The bailout plan put forward by the GAA’s National Financial Committee is set to be ratified by officials at an Offaly county board meeting next month.

Offaly’s Rigney Calls Time On Hurling Career

Rigney in action against Kilkenny last summer

By Justin Kelly

Offaly stalwart James Rigney has announced his retirement from intercounty hurling this week. The 29-year-old Kinnitty man has said his decision is due to work commitments, commenting on the hectic training schedule that a role in the county fold entails.

Rigney was one of the most valuable cogs in the Offaly wheel over the last eight years, having made his debut for the side in a league tie against Cork in 2007. His first championship appearance came a year later in a Leinster championship game against Dublin.

Rigney was one of the most versatile players in the set-up throughout his 47 appearances for the Faithful. He operated mostly has an all-action, thoroughly committed defender, but he also ventured forward and put in a number of swashbuckling performances in midfield.

He made his final appearance in last year’s hefty defeat at the hands of eventual All-Ireland winners Kilkenny. That game was the first GAA fixture aired on Sky Sports as part of the controversial television rights deal agreed between the GAA and the British broadcaster last year.

Rigney is the third player from last year’s Offaly senior hurling panel to retire, following Rory Hannify and Kevin Rigney down the tunnel for the final time.

St. Mary’s Edenderry Recognised As One Of Ireland’s Finest Footballing Schools

McDonnell embracing Daniel Flynn after St. Mary's Hogan Cup win in 2012

St. Mary’s Secondary School Edenderry has today been featured in Eamon Donoghue’s coverage of schools GAA in The Irish Times. The article focuses on Emmet McDonnell, the man credited with instilling a winning mentality in St. Mary’s players for more than ten years.

Emmet McDonnell is a teacher at St. Mary’s, and first became involved with the footballers in the school in 2002, and finally after a decade of steady improvement, the former Offaly boss led his men to the prestigious Hogan Cup in 2012.

Emmet was recently interviewed for the Irish Times, and this is that interview:


St Mary’s Edenderry now up there with the best football schools

By Eamon Donoghue

Hanging in Emmet McDonnell’s classroom in St Mary’s, Edenderry are the three AFL jerseys of past pupils Paul Cribbin, Seán Hurley and Daniel Flynn – gifts for the man they credit with bringing their school from senior ‘B’ to Hogan Cup glory.

When former Offaly manager McDonnell got involved with the school’s Gaelic football teams they were a solid Leinster ‘B’ team. Yet in the past six years Edenderry have reached three Leinster ‘A’ finals and two All-Ireland finals – finally lifting the Hogan Cup in 2012.

“I would have started in 2002 with a group of players who I suppose are now heavily involved with intercounty teams, but we were a ‘B’ team then. I brought that group through and followed them to senior in September 2006.

“Keith Cribbin would have been involved, Cathal McNally, they’re both with the Kildare senior team now. Then I suppose Seán Hurley and Paul Cribbin from Kildare too would have come in as young guys with that squad and Anton O’Sullivan, who is with the Offaly senior team now. Paul and Anton were actually starting on that team.

 “We ended up winning the All-Ireland ‘B’ colleges in 2007 with them. They had won a north Leinster under-14 and under-16 so a lot of work went into that bunch over the four years.

“That final was against St Eunan’s Letterkenny and Michael Murphy was in midfield for them and he was as big then as he is now. He scored 10 points against us but we beat them in extra-time and things just took off from there.”

Things certainly did take off; within two years of their debut senior ‘A’ campaign they were contesting an All-Ireland.

“The next year was our first year up in the ‘A’ and we got to the Leinster semi-final and Athlone beat us and went on to win it, but the following year we won it.

“Paul, Seán and Anton came of age and we ended up getting to the All-Ireland final, only narrowly losing out. Jack O’Connor’s son Éanna won it for Coláiste na Sceilge with the last kick of the ball, and I suppose there was a lot of disappointment after that final which spurred us on to come back and train that bit harder to win that Hogan Cup – and in 2012 we did.”

Training hard was a key component of St Mary’s incredible transformation with word of their early morning fitness sessions spreading across the province in those years.

“To be honest that was a little bit of a myth that grew legs and then more after it sprung up, but look we certainly did early morning training sessions. The reason we did that though was because we wanted to train at a good level but we wanted to do it without affecting academic performance.
“So rather than taking lads out during the school day, which wasn’t appropriate, we put it to the lads and it suited them.”

The three key men, pillars of the ‘new’ St Mary’s Edenderry who now travel the province with a swagger and the conviction of a school who’ve tasted success, would be Cribbin, Hurley and Flynn.

As has been the case for many years, from Roscommon’s Tommy Grehan in 1988 to Down’s Caolan Mooney in 2011 and beyond, the Hogan Cup has been sourced as a breeding ground for AFL recruiters in search of the country’s best young talent. Remarkably though, these three who were all consequentially signed up by AFL clubs, all hail from the same Johnstownbridge club.

“I suppose it all began actually the day of the 2009 Hogan Cup final. No sooner had the final whistle blown and the AFL scouts and Martin Kennedy from Dublin were on the field and they were speaking to Paul Cribbin straight away as he went off the pitch.

“Certainly I spoke to the lads over the years, and look, while they were certainly big losses for their club and county it was a fantastic opportunity for them to get and certainly one that’s be hard to be negative on.

“The scouts are looking for the best athletes and they are there in these school games. It’s the same with Caolan Mooney, he was the best colleges player in 2011 so it’s understandable that these lads are nabbed.

“In my classroom now in St Mary’s I have Paul Cribbin, Daniel Flynn and Seán Hurley’s AFL jerseys hanging in the room and there’s young lads coming in and looking at them everyday. These young lads are looking up to them, and it is something for them to aspire to.”

McDonnell has stepped down from the helm but according to current manager Enda Mitchell, his enduring influence is now imprinted upon all footballers in the school.

“It’s a mentality that is nearly ingrained from our under-14s now, these lads have been watching and they now know what’s become expected of them.

“Lads want to improve, we’re a small school, a mixed school and we’re punching above our weight.
“A lot of that is down to Emmet and the lads, they changed the mentality, put a focus on training correctly and put in a belief that we should be competing with these big schools.”

Irish Times Article: http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/schools-gaa-st-mary-s-edenderry-now-up-there-with-the-best-football-schools-1.2079749

Comedy GAA Play ‘The Pull’ Coming To Offaly

By Justin Kelly

The GAA based comedy ‘The Pull’ is being staged in two Offaly localities in March this year. On Thursday, March 5, Ferbane/Belmont Minor GAA club will host the production at Gallen Community School in Ferbane, while on Friday, March 27, Shinrone Drama Group and the Tidy Towns Committee will welcome the show to the Shinrone Community Centre. The show will commence at 8pm on both nights, and admission is just €10.

Half Solid Productions is the company behind the globetrotting show, and they are continually staging ‘The Pull’ in venues across Ireland, the UK, and America. Written by former Irish Independent GAA correspondent Liam Horan, and fellow Mayo writer and actor John Corless, ‘The Pull’ tells the story of the fundraising efforts of a hapless GAA club who have found themselves in €1,000 worth of debt. Liam was the creator of the popular 'Championship Man' series on RTE Radio One, while John is a well-known poet in the Connacht region. Both men have combined their experiences to create this popular show.

Based on the fictional Ballybore GAA club, the play follows the people involved in the club as they decide to pull a truck around their home town in order to raise funds and break a Guinness World Record. “Chaos ensues and they end up getting in way over their heads,” Liam Horan explained.
The club itself is an anomaly as it claims its foundation pre-dates the GAA organisation by some 130 years. Not to be undone by a ‘not-so-colossal’ debt of €1,000, which “feels like a million euro” to the humble Ballybore boys, a ‘thoroughly colossal’ fundraising effort is formulated in the shape of the ‘muck-shifting’ truck pull.

Instead of a collaborated club effort, the responsibility falls on “the usual one or two,” and the plan doesn’t exactly pan out as expected. “In fact, the plan itself is not the most convincing document ever produced,” Horan quipped. “In the midst of the panic and cack-handed attempts at fundraising, there are a number of sub-plots that arise to keep the crowd entertained,” he added.

Ironically, the play is now being used by GAA clubs throughout the country as a fundraising night, and it is receiving truckloads of praise along the way: “Through the chair, we would highly recommend The Pull. The talent and energy of the guys in Half Solid Productions is second to none,” James Deane, PRO of the Shannon Gaels club from Roscommon said. “If you’ve ever been to a GAA meeting, you’ll enjoy it – even if you haven’t, you will still recognise the characters from your local community. John and Liam brought us on a very entertaining journey without us ever leaving our seats,” Mike McMahon from Knockaderry GAA club in Limerick added.

Want to make some money for your club? How about hosting The Pull? For all bookings, contact Liam Horan at info@halfsolid.com or on 087-9185867. For more information on the Ferbane and Shinrone shows, visit www.halfsolid.com.

Two Offaly GAA Clubs Set For Merger

By Justin Kelly

Two small GAA clubs in Co. Offaly look set to merge in the coming days. Killeigh GAA and neighbouring Killurin are owing the decision to dwindling player numbers in the parish.

Former Offaly county board chairman Pat Teehan chaired a meeting with both clubs on Tuesday night, where the option was discussed. The matter is expected to top the agenda at the Killeigh GAA AGM, which has been set for Friday night.

Killurin's numbers in healthier shape in 2007

This will be the second merger in Killeigh’s history after previously joining forces with Raheen in the 1980s and 90s. It will be the second merger in Co. Offaly in just two years after Ballyskenagh and Killavilla formed one club in March 2013. Dwindling numbers has been a problem in the GAA in the last number of years as the downturn in the economy in 2008 led to mass emigration. The midlands was particularly affected as job losses were more severely felt in rural communities. Young people left for the bigger urban centres, as well as moving further afield to countries like Australia.

Statistics from the Central Statistics Office reveal that 480,000 people have emigrated from Ireland since 2009. Almost 85 per cent of these people were aged 15-44 at the time they left Ireland. This age range encompasses all GAA players from minor level upwards, and player numbers have been affected accordingly. While this level of emigration was absorbed for the most part by larger clubs in Dublin and the bigger towns and cities of the country, communities like Killeigh and Killurin have been decimated. The decision to amalgamate both teams can only be finalised if 75 per cent of both club’s membership vote in favour of the motion.

The Killeigh AGM will be held tomorrow night.