Our senior players continue to set fun challenges for the juveniles, a plea to shop local while our efforts to help the vulnerable in our community continue. All this and more in this week’s news on the Blues

We Are Community

Once again we wish to thank our army of selfless volunteers who have been busy purchasing groceries, fuel, delivering prescriptions and generally helping the vulnerable and over-70s in our community throughout the last three weeks. It is during times of crises that we really see the benefit of a tight and caring community and the people of Nenagh and indeed our club, have been more than willing to put the shoulder to the wheel to help those in need.

Our volunteers will continue to provide these services for as long as is required and if you need any assistance please contact club coordinator Bartley Ryan on 086 735 8359.

Anyone who requires any assistance is asked to contact club coordinator Bartley Ryan on 086 735 8359

MacDonagh Park

Following a directive from Croke Park we wish to advise our members and the wider community that our grounds at MacDonagh Park are now closed. This includes the use of all pitches and property for recreational purposes, including walking, casual games or gatherings. We once again respectfully ask our players, members and the wider community to respect this directive and not to enter our grounds for any reason whatsoever.

Thank You

Once again we wish to thank our senior stars for providing daily fun challenges for our juveniles to help keep their skills sharp. The generosity of  adult players in doing this is very much appreciated by the entire club. We also wish to thank Niall Cahill for coordinating all of this and of course Barry Heffernan who kindly donated one of his championship jerseys which will be given to one of the juvenile participants.

The Late Br. Pat O’Connell

The late Br. Pat O’Connell receives a presentation from former Nenagh hurler, Paul Dolan.

We wish to extend our sympathies to the family and friends of the late Brother O’Connell who has recently passed away. Since 1967, Brother O’Connell worked extremely hard to promote the Rice Cup competition and won it in 1969 when he took charge of Our Lady’s Templemore after they defeated Charleville. He later transferred work to St. Joseph’s CBS, Nenagh and won it for a second time as manager in 1988 when they defeated Ard Scoil Rís, 2-8 to 1-2. The 1988 side featured a number of Nenagh Éire Óg players including Pádraig O’Kennedy, Liam Walsh, Frank McGrath, John Tucker (0-1), Michael Loughnane, Mervyn Scanlon (0-1) and Eddie Guerin who scored 1-3 in the final.

He took on the role of secretary, chairman and president of the Rice Cup committee and coached hurling in Nenagh CBS for many years with countless numbers of our players benefitting from his expertise. In 2017, St. Joseph’s CBS made a presentation to him to thank him for his many years of service to the competition and it was made by former Nenagh Éire Óg player, Mr. Paul Dolan.

Those of us who were taught by Br. O’Connell will remember an enthusiastic, kind-hearted and caring man who always had the interests of the students first. His enthusiasm passed on a love of Science and Religion to all his pupils. 

To his brothers Sean and Daniel, sisters-in-law Chrissie and Noreen, his nephews, nieces, Brothers in religion, relatives, the staff and students of Nenagh CBS and his wide circle of friends we offer our sincerest condolences.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

The Nenagh CBS side that won the 1988 Rice Cup

Sympathies

The club wishes to extend its sympathies to the Jones family and in particular to Taff whose mother Megan from Ynysddu, Torfaen in Wales passed away recently. 

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam

We also wish to extend our sympathies to the family and friends of the late John McKenna, Ballygraigue and Cookstown, Tyrone. John’s grandson Pearse Morris is currently part of our senior hurling panel while his granddaughter Ceri played camogie with us for many years. Jason McKenna, another grandson, is another former player with the club.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

1991 League Final

We have been posting old photographs to our social media channels recently and one which garnered a lot of attention this week was the one above of Michael Cleary accepting the Hogan Cup from North Tipperary board chairman, Borris-Ileigh’s Billy Ryan after we had beaten Borrisokane, 2-12 to 0-13, in the North league final. For our younger members, the North League was a huge competition back in the 1980s and 1990s as the winners got to play the runners up in the North senior championship final for the right to represent the division in the county championship. The finals often attracted well over 1,000 supporters and both Toomevara and ourselves won the Dan Breen Cup coming through this route. 

The Nenagh team that day was Seamus Kennedy, Fergal Hynes, Conor O’Donovan, Frank Moran, Denis Finnerty, John Heffernan, Michael Grace, Philip Kennedy (0-2), Jim Nagle, John Kennedy (0-1), Michael Cleary (0-7), Con Howard, Michael Kennedy (1-0), Neilly Corbett (1-1), Eddie Tucker. Substitutions: Paul Kennedy for Grace, Barry O’Brien (0-1) for Howard. 

Journalist and clubman Brian McDonnell tweeted that the jersey worn in the photograph should be re-issued and sold as a retro club top, a suggestion that was certainly popular on social media. However, the Nenagh Guardian’s Gerry Slevin had a different suggestion in the paper that week and issued a stinging criticism of the club’s attire and shortly afterwards a new set was purchased, in sky blue and navy and we have been wearing those colours since. 

Incidentally, Gerry Slevin was very complimentary of the performance of full back Conor O’Donovan and awarded him the Guardian’s Player of the Week accolade. It is interesting to note that Michael “Babs” Keating, the then Tipperary manager, had no issues with Conor and Michael playing a league match for their club two weeks before a knockout Munster championship semi-final against Limerick. Indeed, it did the lads no harm whatsoever as Tipperary defeated Limerick 2-18 to 0-10 with Michael Cleary scoring 0-5.

If you have any photographs relating to our club, particularly from the 1970s to today, please email them to eireognenagh@gmail.com or alternatively send them via private message to any of our social media channels. People love looking at them and it is a great way to pass the time in these difficult days.

Shop Local

We request that where possible, people shop in our fantastic local businesses to help them through these difficult times. Many of them have been very generous to our club over the years in terms of sponsorship and purchasing advertising signs in our grounds and they will continue to do so into the future if we support them now. We also ask you to purchase the Nenagh Guardian on Wednesday. The local paper has been an extraordinary promotor of Gaelic games for well over a century and its archives are a phenomenon resource when it comes to researching games from the past. It would be a shame to lose any of these businesses so please support them now, when they need our custom more than ever. Many businesses are now selling online so please check their social media and websites for further information.

Juvenile News

Éire Óg Juvenile club and Camogie club skills challenge continues each day having completed three weeks so far. We aim to continue it as long as possible to keep all underage players that wish to take part involved in club activity on a daily basis. This week included some fun activities such as Bin Ball which was a nice throwback to last years Cúl Camp.

Family scores can be registered daily, it is fantastic to see so many families doing the challenges together. It is never too late to begin participating, just send your score into the group text on the day, family scores are very welcome. Reminder, any child that regularly takes part in the challenge will have their name entered into a draw by their coach once we return to training to win a great prize kindly given by Barry Heffernan of his Tipperary jersey from last years All-Ireland campaign. Barry will present the jersey to the winning child at a training session.

Sincere thank you must go to Niall Cahill for running the daily challenge and also to all of the adult players in the club who have taken part in the challenge to date. It is hugely uplifting to see the high level of enthusiasm from them in ensuring the juvenile players skill levels increase throughout this difficult time. Thanks also to all the parental involvement at home each day. There is a huge amount of coaching taking place each day by parents and this will no doubt lead to an increased number of coaches within the club in the future.

Wonderful Artists

We were thrilled to received two wonderful drawings from two exceptionally talented artists and camógs in the club, Amelie and Rebecca, both aged eight, who kindly sent us in these two brilliant pictures of camogie players in full flight. The pictures certainly brightened up our week. Thank you girls for the wonderful drawings.

The Peters Family on RTÉ

Many of our younger members are enjoying their time off school and have been continuing their education watching RTÉ’s early morning educational programme. Imagine their surprise when who should put up on screen cheering on Éire Óg but the Peters family. Have a look in the video below!

GAA Activities for Children

The GAA have added lots of fun activities for children on its website including pages to colour in as well as an educational portal for primary school children. 

You can access it here.

Matches on YouTube

This week we have made a number of games from 2013 freely available to view on our YouTube channel. These include the drawn and replayed county semi-final games against Kiladangan. To watch these search Nenagh Éire Óg on YouTube.

The GAA Newsletter

The March edition of the GAA Club Newsletter is now available.

This month’s edition includes the following.

• A message from GAA President, John Horan, and GAA Director General, Tom Ryan, on the Association’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• GAA Community and Health Manager, Colin Regan, describes how clubs around the country have rallied together to help their communities during the current health crisis.
• Details of the GAA’s partnership with SuperValu and Centra to help feed Ireland’s elderly and the most vulnerable in communities across the island at this most challenging time.
• The importance of looking after your mental health at this stressful time, and the resources that are available should you need help.
• A schedule of upcoming coach development sessions.
• Essays from young GAA members around the country on what their club means to them.

You can read and download the March edition of the GAA newsletter here.

Club Lotto

During the current Covid-19 crises our club lotto has been suspended however, you can still play online by clicking here.

This week we meet Paddy Murphy and Zoey Gratton, we partner with Centra Nenagh to help the most vulnerable in our community and Barry Heffernan’s 2019 championship jersey is up for grabs. All this and more in this week’s news on the Blues.

We Are Community 

Through our Healthy Club Project, Nenagh Éire Óg is helping the community by delivering groceries, fuel and items from local pharmacies to the elderly and most vulnerable. The club put out a request for helpers to complete these tasks and were overwhelmed with the response from players and members from both our GAA and camogie sections and currently have a team of over fifty people who have been busy these past two weeks. We have partnered with Musgraves and Centra in Nenagh and anyone who needs groceries delivered are asked to phone Centra on 067-31830 or alternatively they can ring club coordinator Bartley Ryan on 086 735 8359 if require any assistance whatsoever.

Covid-19 Guidelines

We all want to get back to our normal lives where we can go to MacDonagh Park to meet up with our friends, return to training, play matches and just generally enjoy life. However, in order for us to do just that it is important that we follow the latest guidelines from both the government and HSE so that we can slow down the spread of the virus and help prevent people in our community from getting sick and possibly even dying. The sooner people comply with all the guidelines the sooner this virus vanishes and we can all get back to doing what we love best, watching and playing Gaelic games.

MacDonagh Park

Following a directive from Croke Park we wish to advise our members and the wider community that our grounds at MacDonagh Park are now closed. This includes the use of all pitches and property for recreational purposes, including walking, casual games or gatherings. We once again respectfully ask our players, members and the wider community to respect this directive and not to enter our grounds for any reason whatsoever.

Sport for Business – 30 Under 30 – Paddy Murphy

All of us who know Paddy Murphy recognise his leadership qualities both on and off the pitch and now the All-Ireland minor and under-21 medal winner has been acknowledged for his abilities by Sport for Business. The William Fry sports and litigation lawyer has been busy in recent times advising clients operating within the sports industry including governing bodies, clubs, competitions, county boards, the IRFU, Six Nations, Tipperary GAA and Horse Racing Ireland. It is a well-deserved recognition for a man who works hard both on and off the pitch. Well done Paddy from everyone in the club.

You can read Sport for Business’s article about Paddy here.

Let’s get to know Paddy a little better!

Name: Paddy Murphy

Occupation: Solicitor, specialising in sports law and litigation

Schools/College Attended: Gaelscoil Nenagh for primary school, CBS Nenagh for secondary school, UL & UCD for college

Favourite Position: Centre forward

Achievements with the club to date: u12,14 & minor county titles, u12, 14, 16 & minor north titles, 2 x north senior titles

When and where did you first start playing GAA? 1998 when I was eight with Nenagh

Biggest influence on your GAA career: Michael ‘Skippy’ Cleary

What sporting event would you most like to attend? the rugby World Cup final with Ireland playing

To date what is your favourite moment in sport? Winning the under-21 All Ireland with Tipp in 2010 What has been your biggest disappointment in sport? Losing the 2018 county final because we didn’t perform

Favourite Venue: Nenagh

Favourite G.A.A. player: Noel McGrath – a class hurler & sound fella who has come through life challenges

What sportsperson would you most like to meet? Roger Federer – a magician on the tennis court

What is the hardest part of your sporting life? Balancing my job in Dublin with training in Nenagh – both are equally demanding

Toughest player to mark in training? Barry Heff -he’s strong, fast, good in the air & a sticky marker

Who is the ‘joker’ on the panel? Conor McCarthy

What advice would you give to young players? Work hard on your hurling skills – it’s easy for players to get fit and strong but your skills will separate you from the average player

If you won the lotto what would be the first thing you would buy? A new Tesla

Favourite holiday destination: Guatemala

Favourite Film/TV Show: the Stranger was pretty good. Game of Thrones too

Favourite book you’ve read? Commit by Enda McNulty for sports psychology

In ten-years time…. I hope to be a leading sports lawyer with at least three county medals

Let’s Meet Zoey Gratton

Check our website tomorrow when we will find out a little more about another two seniors, Shane Hennessy and Megan Grace

Juvenile and Camogie News

Nenagh Éire Óg Juvenile club and Camogie club skills challenge continues this week having completed sixteen days so far. We aim to continue it as long as possible to keep all underage players that wish to take part involved in club activity on a daily basis.

Huge thanks must go to the adult players in the club that have taken part in the challenge. It is hugely uplifting to see the high level of enthusiasm from them in ensuring the juvenile players skill levels have increased throughout this difficult time. Thanks also to all the parental involvement at home each day. There is a huge amount of coaching taking place each day by parents and this will no doubt lead to an increased number of coaches within the club in the future.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.

Thank you to all of our juvenile members and their families who took time last Thursday evening to participate in the national show of appreciation for health care workers. Well done to all who participated.

Thank you to senior hurler & Senior Hurling All Ireland winner Barry Heffernan who has kindly given us a Tipperary jersey from last year as a prize for our underage skills challenge. Any child that regularly takes part in the challenge will have their name entered into a draw by their coach once we return to training. Barry will present the jersey to the winner at a training session. Well done Barry 👏👏👏

Families Mental Health

Check out the following poster for clever ways of maintaining both your and your family’s mental health during these few weeks of isolation.

Nenagh Library

One of the great facilities the town offers is our wonderful library and with our movements restricted during the current Covid-19 crises why not check out their free online services which can help pass the time? You can join the library for free and get eBooks, audiobooks, online magazines and newspapers or even take language and other courses for free. 

Further information about all the library offers can be found here.

Free and Fun Workouts

For anyone that’s missing out on physical activity or for those who wish to have fun family exercise you should check out Joe Wicks channel on YouTube where every morning at 9am he posts new and fun PE videos for you to try at home. These are proving a global hit and a great way to work off excess energy both for you and the children.

You can access his YouTube channel here.

Daffodil Day

We have all been touched by cancer at some stage of our lives and this year, the Irish Cancer Society’s main fundraising drive, Daffodil Day, was cancelled due to the current pandemic however you can still contribute to this wonderful cause by texting DAFFODIL to 50300 to donate €4.

Here’s The Cranberries song Daffodil Lament.

Club Lotto

During the current Covid-19 crises our club lotto has been suspended however, you can still play online by clicking here.

Here is a poem, written in 1869 by Irish-French poet Kathleen O’Meara (1839-1888) titled And People Stayed Home. It seems appropriate for the times we are living in.

“And people stayed home

and read books and listened

and rested and exercised

and made art and played

and learned new ways of being

and stopped

and listened deeper

someone meditated

someone prayed

someone danced

someone met their shadow

and people began to think differently

and people healed

and in the absence of people who lived in ignorant ways,

dangerous, meaningless and heartless,

even the earth began to heal

and when the danger ended

and people found each other

grieved for the dead people

and they made new choices

and dreamed of new visions

and created new ways of life

and healed the earth completely

just as they were healed themselves.”