Seachtain Na Gaeilge
Míle buiochas do gach duine a ghlacadh páirt i Seachtain Na Gaeilge 2021. Bliain difiriúil a bhí ann ach bhí go leor le deanamh ar líne. Huge thanks to you all for partaking in our remote Seachtain Na Gaeilge this year. Seachtain Na Gaeilge is a great occasion for us to remind ourselves of our language and that by using just a cúpla focal each day we can come closer to this wonderful language. Even though the fortnight has ended we would continually encourage clubs and their members to use Gaeilge in their social media posts and use the #GAAGaeilge on all posts.
Ná déan dearmad ar an seanfhocal álainn ‘beatha teanga í a labhairt’/’The life of the language is in speaking it’
Rockwell Rovers Virtual 5km Challenge
Rockwell Rovers GAA Club is holding a virtual 5k walk/run from 28th March to 5th April in aid of ongoing club development. The Club has recently commenced developing an All-Weather pitch and a Floodlit Walkway. This will be a huge asset to the parish of New Inn and surrounding areas especially in these covid times. After spending most of the past year in lockdown, everyone, young and old, is looking forward to getting back on the pitches of Ireland either to train and play or to just enjoy our wonderful games of hurling and football. The Rockwell Rovers Club, in rural West Tipperary, caters for over 30 teams between Juvenile, LGFA, Camogie, Mothers and Others and our Senior club so this all-weather pitch is essential to cater for all. To be in with a chance to win some personalised Rockwell Rovers gear please walk and donate. Don’t forget to take a picture and share on the club social media platforms. All support from near and far would be greatly appreciated. To get involved go to the following link: https://gofund.me/69a1f0e1
Star of the 1968 County Senior Football final goes to his Eternal Reward
When the Kilsheelan Kilcash club reached the County senior football final in 1968 they were very much the underdogs as the club had not won a senior football final since 1933 thirty five long years of a gap. Their opponents on the other hand Ardfinnan had gone through a golden era in the early sixties winning three in a row county titles and were firm favourites to add another string to their bow. The Ardfinnan team was populated by some of the great stars of that era most notably Michael Babs Keating who was at the height of his career for club and county at that time. Kilsheelan Kilcash had some notable players also in Dick Strang and Dick O Gorman who had both worn the county jersey. However, it fell to a man who had only worn the blue and gold jersey of his club to face the unenviable task of curbing the threat that Keating posed. The selectors wisely picked Frank Coffey for the task as he was a most tenacious defender, strong and fearless in the tackle and as committed a player as you would find anywhere. Frank’s contribution in holding Babs to just one fisted point was probably the winning of the game. This was a feat that many of the top defenders at Inter-county level were unable to do in those times. Someone asked Babs after the game why did he not move off Frank to someone else and Babs said I knew he would follow me wherever I went. How right he was. It was great to see that Babs in his condolences to the Coffey family recognised Frank for the exceptional club player that he was. Frank was one of five brothers of which four gave outstanding service both on and off the field to the Kilsheelan Kilcash club. Frank who resided in Fethard for most of his married life was laid to rest in the home of his ancestors with the blue and gold colours of his club draping his coffin on his last journey.
Go ndéanai Dia trócaire ar a anam
Paddy Kelly Kiladangan
Paddy first played adult hurling for Kiladangan in 1956. In 1966 he won the first of two North Intermediate Hurling medals, the second coming 5 years later when he captained the team and followed this up with a county medal. Paddy was captain of the Tipperary side in 1972 that won the Munster & All Ireland Intermediate Hurling Titles. Off the field, Paddy represented Kiladangan on the North Board and was chairman of the club from 1989 to 1996. During his tenure, the club grounds in Puckane were revamped with the field developed and new dressing rooms erected. Paddy was extremely proud of the club and all the subsequent developments and successes both on and off the field in recent times. 
Paddy was a familiar face to anyone that attended games in the GAA grounds in Puckane – where he carried out many roles with meticulous detail. He was always on site looking after the GAA grounds and pitches where he opened and closed the dressing rooms, oversaw maintenance works and parking cars at matches. He also spent many a night selling tickets for the club lotto. Just some of the many roles that Paddy did for the club over the years. Later in life, Paddy was named as a life president of the club. In 2017, the club honoured him for the lifetime service that he had provided to the club as both a player and officer whilst he was also honoured by the Nenagh Guardian in 2018 after being selected for the Hero of the Community award. Paddy truly was the face of Kiladangan GAA over the last number of decades and he will be a huge loss to the GAA club and to the parish. We express sympathy to his wife Alice, son Eamonn, daughters Noreen, Brid and Ailish, brothers Neddy, Jimmy, William and sister Winnie (Paddy was predeceased by his brother John) and to his beloved grandchildren and to his wider family and large circle of friends.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h’anam dílis
Club defibrillator Purchase Scheme
The GAA will in the coming weeks be launching a new scheme that will help clubs with the purchasing of new defibrillators. The scheme will work along the following lines:
GAA Clubs will be able to register and create their own Fundraising page.- They will select the number of Defibrillators that they require and the fundraising traget will be set based on this.
- Clubs can then circulate this fundraising page and once the target is hit, the units will be delivered and installed within a matter of weeks by Heart Safety Solutions.
- The Defibrillators are state of the art and have 4G connectivity so that if there is an issue such as a low battery, a small number of Club members will get a notification to their phone.
- In addition, Clubs will save almost €1,000 per device when compared with the regular retail price.
Full details will be issued to clubs in the coming days.
GAA Launch Movement Break Resources for Children
The GAA recently launched a new series of movement break resources in conjunction with thye moving well – being well initiative. Aimed at 4 to 8 year old children, these evidence based and developmentally sound videos aim to enhance their fundamental movement skills.
To help meet the challenges of homeschooling and no club activity, this set of video learning resources provide assistance to both primary teachers and parents to contribute to children’s physical activity needs. FMS are the ‘building block’ of more advanced sport-specific skills and are key to children being active later in life. Each video series concentrates on a specific skill and then progresses to a slightly more difficult version of the same skill. The Moving Well-Being Well project is a partnership between the GAA, the DCU’s School of Health and Human Performance, and the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics and Dublin GAA. The team are also delighted to collaborate with the PDST PE department. The MBWB resources are designed as a tool to support the outstanding services continuing to be provided remotely by GAA Coaching and Games Development personnel throughout the island of Ireland. Face-to-face coaching has been provided across a number of schools in each county since Sept. With schools closing at the beginning of the year, personnel in many counties have taken innovative steps to continue providing these services remotely. Ulster GAA’s DENI Curriculum schools’ coaches have delivered 27 physical activity challenges and over 60 live lessons to schools and homes of pupils since the beginning of January. Over 1,550 children have logged into these lessons. Schools Project Coordinator Michael Glover said, “the school’s staff have fully come on board, even though the schools have been closed. Principals and teachers are acutely aware of the need for children to be physically active and our staff have responded to deliver lessons tailored for children and parents at home. From the roll out of virtual lessons in April 2020, there have been around 200,000 views which shows the colossal general engagement.” Similarly, Carlow GAA GDAs have been running live coaching sessions for primary schools across the county. Carlow GAA Games Development Manager, Sean Gannon, noted that “the sessions are being run in conjunction with the teachers across 23 schools. This week alone we ran 30 live classes and provided coaching to 948 different households Teachers are present for all sessions to moderate. If that even goes a small way towards helping either the children or parents cope a bit better, it will have been a very worthwhile exercise.” The GDAs of Rebel Óg Coaching in Cork have been posting Gaelic games coaching and FMS videos on the YouTube channel weekly since the start of January. Cork GAA Games Development Manager, Kevin O’Callaghan said, “this initiative is being rolled out in collaboration with Sciath na Scol, who do an excellent job of emailing the videos to all the schools in their network every week. Their support and that of all the primary teachers and parents has been outstanding, with over 30,000 video views to date.” The MWBW Movement Break resources are the latest addition to a bank of children’s learning and physical activity resources that the GAA has produced in response to Covid-19 restrictions in collaboration with Cumann na mBunscol, the GPA, the LGFA and the Camogie Association. The #GAAPrimary Challenges are designed to help Primary Teachers and parents to work on the cross-curricular lesson plans with children. Gaelic game-themed lessons are across all curriculum subjects and are for children at every class level. These and other resources are available learning.gaa.ie/primaryschool. Speaking about the launch, the GAA’s Director of Coaching and Games Development, Shane Flanagan noted: “The achievement of this latest milestone for the Moving Well Being Well project teams is timely for the GAA as we will soon be launching our new Player Pathway Framework. The pathway is based on the FTEM Framework and its purpose is to support player development by providing the right support, at the right time for the player. “In partnering with DCU and others, we now have an outstanding, evidenced-based research set of resources to ensure the child in the participation phase of our pathway experiences an environment that focuses on physical literacy and helping children to learn basic movements skills, while having fun. Acquiring these skills through the delivery of our club and school programmes will help these young participants remain involved in sport and physical activity for life. Key to this will be the coach/teacher and we will be using the research to inform our coach education framework.” The GAA MWBW Movement Break Resources are available here – https://learning.gaa.ie/movingwellbeingwell
Fr Nicholas Sheehy 255th Anniversary
On March 15th 255 years ago, Fr. Nicholas Sheehy was hanged in Clonmel. He prominently opposed evictions, Protestant tithes and Penal laws which persecuted Catholics. This drew him into conflict with Protestant leaders in Clonmel and he was convicted on fabricated evidence of being involved in a murder. He was hanged in Clonmel on March 15th 1766. The body of the supposed victim was never found and it is widely believed he was alive and emigrated to Canada. Fr Sheehy’s head was stuck on a spike over Clonmel Jail for 10 years as a warning to others. His body was later retrieved by his sister and buried in Shanrahan graveyard, Clogheen. He is recognised as a martyr and the local GAA club representing the parish of Burncourt and Clogheen is named in his honour. President Eamon DeValera attended the 200 year commemoration in 1966 and his grandson Eamon O’Cuiv attended the 250 year event in 2016.
GAA Oral History Series
Next up in our GAA oral history series is Michael Hogan, the nephew of the late Michael Hogan, Tipperary footballer shot dead in Croke Park on Bloody Sunday, 1920.
He speaks about growing up in Grangemockler and the role that Gaelic football played in the area. He describes following the Tipperary football team, as well as the hurling team, and discusses travelling to matches. He also mentions listening to matches on the radio. Michael speaks about the death of his uncle, revealing what he has heard from relations about the day itself and the funeral afterwards. He discusses the naming of the Hogan Stand in Croke Park after his uncle, and local monuments that are also dedicated to him. He recalls great Tipperary teams of the past and recollects matches he has attended. He compares the game of hurling in his younger days to the modern version of the game. He recalls the social life in the Grangemockler area in his younger days and mentions the role that Macra na Feirme played. Michael recalls stories he has heard from relations regarding the War of Independence and Civil War in the area, and also speaks about the decision to open up Croke Park to other sports.
You can listen to the full interview by clicking on the following link – https://www.gaa.ie/the-gaa/oral-history/michael-hogan/
Tipperary GAA Scene
If there is anything you feel should feature in this column going forward please feel free to forward it to pro.tipperary@gaa.ie
By Jonathan Cullen Wed 17th Mar
