The Thoughts of the President of the GAA, Larry McCarthy
We were privileged to the have the President of the GAA, Larry McCarthy at our 70th Anniversary Banquet and in his wonderful address he superbly spoke in general terms about the association and then linked the general to the specific club, our club Mullingar Shamrocks and identified many of our activities and achievements of which we should be intensely proud. And of course we were also challenged in the course of this address.
“Your greatest legacy is the love and the passion …”
Larry opened his address by expressing his gratitude and the gratitude of the GAA institution for ‘those people sitting around the table 70 years ago in 1953’ including “Seán McCoy who is with us tonight”. “Thank you to the officials for creating a club in the town and the volunteers for ensuring that not only did it survive but thrived. Eighty-seven titles in 70 years is more than one a year anyway and that is a magnificent achievement no matter what way you look at it and the fruits, arguably of the labour and of the seeds that were sewn way back and hat are to be seen here tonight in the vibrancy of the club and the enthusiasm of the club and all of has been done since”.
“And despite having won all those titles that is probably not your greatest legacy; your greatest legacy is going to be the love and the passion and the interest that you have imbued in young people over the years through your street leagues, through your competitions, through your teams for Gaelic Games” “How many kids have passed through Shamrocks? I don’t know. Innumerable I would suggest. That’s going to be your greatest legacy. Titles are great and we are going to celebrate one tonight and I suspect it will be long into the night but that’s the legacy of your great club.”
“The GAA is the greatest community based sporting organization in the world …”
“How many people have you helped? How many people has this club helped in lots and lots of ways over the years? Again innumerable I would suggest. But that’s what we do. That’s what we do in the GAA. That’s what clubs do because without a doubt the GAA is the greatest community based sporting organization in the world, bar none. The tentacles and the roots that we have no matter where we settle, whether in the island of Ireland or anywhere around the world, are very deep and we contribute very significantly no matter what community we are involved in and we saw that through that harrowing pandemic that we have just come out of. The GAA as an entity was absolutely brilliant in its own roles in its communities’ across the country and across the world actually …”
“The GAA is also the greatest intergenerational sporting organization in the world"
“We are also the greatest intergenerational sporting organization in the world and I suspect that you have children from eight to 18 visiting Springfield every week, that is the ethos of this institution, that what makes us different, that’s what makes us great, and makes clubs like Mullingar Shamrocks great. Given that we make such a contribution to community you should not be shy about knocking on Robert Troy’s door or Peter Burke’s door and asking them for money and for investment or knocking on the door of local authorities or political entities and asking for investment because the return on investment that the GAA gives in terms of any investment made is off the charts, the ROI is incredible. Don’t be afraid to say this is what we are doing for our community. We need help. You do need help. You need pitches. You need more land in this town. Go knock on doors. You deserve it, I suggest to you”.
“The very fact that you are a Healthy Club and a One Club is absolutely brilliant”.
“I’m delighted to see you are one club. You may be aware that over the last few months, we launched our strategic plan for the next 5 years. It’s called Aontas and aontas is unity and it involves both the integration of ourselves and the LGFA and the camogie association. It won’t be easy; it will take time and this is what emanates from clubs like Mullingar Shamrocks. Congratulations, and congratulations also on being a Healthy Club. What a healthy club does is it brings people into the club who are not necessarily interested in hurling or football or LGF; it brings in community members and they get to see what we do and get to see how good we are in terms of our community. The very fact that you are a healthy club and a One Club is absolutely brilliant.”
The “Now that I’ve got you moment …”
The President explained that he gets to travel an awful lot about the country and around the world and when he hears the words “Now that I’ve got you, I know that what is coming next is probably not laudatory, It’s probably going to be a suggestion at best and at worst the finger in the chest followed by the words, You Should Do This! ”.
“Now that I’ve got you … what are you doing about referees. You have wonderful teams and notwithstanding Barry Kelly’s contribution, What are you doing about referees, are you developing them? Are you encouraging them and if not, why not? It is self-evident that without referees there is no games. We need to change our attitude to referees across the organization and I’m obviously talking about some of the incidents that besmirched our reputation last autumn. One of those is one too many, So what we have got to do is, starting in clubs, is to respect our referees Do the referees in your club get access to meals after training? Do they get strength and conditioning? Do they get access to physiotherapy? I might ask the same question of Frank Mescall, Chairman of the County Board. What are we doing for referees? We have to show respect. We have to elevate the role of referees in our organization because we need them, we need them very, very badly. I leave you with that thought.
“Fun is good …”
“I’ll also throw this line at you, in terms of your continued involvement, particularly for your children, particularly for the young people who are here. There is a baseball team owner, Mike Veeck and his mantra is Fun is good … let that be the mantra of Shamrocks and what I’ve seen up there on the video obviously fun is good in a huge, huge way in Mullingar Shamrocks so continue on in that vein particularly through your street leagues and your under age competitions. I’m now standing between a team and its medals and volunteers and their awards and that is not a good place to be”.
