Alan Brady's wake in the Funeral Home in Johnstown attracted massive crowds on Friday evening.As did his burial in Dunderry graveyard on Saturday morning.Although I was unable to attend his funeral Mass in Navan on Saturday I expect that it too was overflowing.For such a private man he has some send off.
Later on Saturday I attended the inter camogie semi final between O Mahony's and Boardsmill because my daughter Mags is captain and full back of O Mahonys.Floss Fay's daughter ,another Dunderrian ,also plays midfield.Boardsmill won handily and they are on a roll as their Junior Team also won the Junior Final earlier in the day.Seemingly all the former Trim players who are natives of Boardsmill have transferred home and they are gunning for success.
I was happy with the performance of both ladies and Mags although approaching veteran status is well able for it.
Later my own Club Dunderry played Trim in the other Inter.Camogie Semi Final.I had seen ourselves playing Trim earlier in the year and we hockeyed them so I gave it a miss on the assumption that we would repeat the dose.I was wrong as the match went to extra time and we were lucky to pluck victory out in the end.
The final should be a classic .
In the afternoon three of our lads Conor Dempsey and Lukie Martyn both of whom started and Aaron Feeney,a first cousin of Lukie .who was a sub., played with Meath against Mayo in the B UNDER 21 Hurling Final in Thurles and won .Well done all.
A huge Dunderry contingent went to Thurles the second time in a row,as many also went there to cheer on Timber Leavy's son in the B Minor All Ireland last Saturday .Unfortunately they lost
It is great to see so many from Dunderry going regularly to the Home of Hurling.
It seems that we gave A Walk over to St.Michael's in the adult B League later in the day.I don't know whether the clash with the Thurles match had anything to do with this,but it is a sad fact that this is not the first time that our second team failed to field this year.
For many years we fielded three adult football teams and two adult hurling teams .
We are now getting it hard to field two only football teams and have only one hurling team.This is compounded by our failure to field either a Minor football or Hurling Team for the first time in decades.
Clearly the Club structures need to be examined to identify the reasons for this unsatisfactory state of affairs.
My own assessment is that the Juvenile Club for a number of years has failed abysmally in its primary function of spreading and inculcating club loyalty and the promotion of the games within its own sphere and has failed to ensure a flow of youngsters into the Club proper.
I know that great work is being done at the younger age groups and that we have a small number of promising lads between 16 and 21 years but there is a lacuna in this age group as far as I can see.
My personal view is that the separate existence of the Juvenile section is not a good thing and that the Adult club ought fully subsume it now..In brief two GAA Clubs within the one Parish is not on and is failing to work properly.
Later on Saturday evening a fund raiser was held in Horan's to replenish the funds of the Lourdes Fund,which is used to help fund ill people to go to Lourdes.
As a former recipient of help from this source we supported this function as best we could ,as did a sizable and generous crowd from the Parish.This fund was established I think around the time of Peter Smith's death and its informal directors are Tommy Farrelly,Gus Martin,Deirdre Mc Cormack,Eileen Bruton and Catherine Foley.
A good night was had all round and I would guess a fair few bob raised.
On Sunday morning I went to the A league match against Bective in our pitch.There was a dreadful cross wind which made good football difficult ...Our Finn ,Lukie Martyn...injured in the U21 Hurling,Conor Dempsey and a number of other injured people were not available to start.
Basically it was a dreadful match with scores at a premium and it wasn't until the last quarter that it opened up.Bective kept trying to walk the ball into the goal but our guys had the experience and cuteness to capitalize, turn over the ball and counter attack to advantage.
We won by 3---4 to 0--7 as far as I can remember and reached our first target of promotion back to Div.2 Football,which is where we must be to make progress in years to come.
And the under 10 hurlers won the shield in a hurling blitz in Dunganny and our Padraigh played ,Proud as punch is mise.
And to cap the sweetness our grand daughter Aisling Mc Donagh dropped me in a burger from Supermacs ,cooked by herself , on her last day of this job before she returns to Maynooth on Monday I think.
She was not available for the Trim match on SATURDAY because she had to work unfortunately or fortunately depending how you look at it.
As if we didn't have enough injuries, word has just filtered through that Conor O SHEA broke his ankle in the match against Bective.
God help us all.
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