Our columnist Frank Brandon discusses the latest Sporting Club Ireland event, last weekend’s rollercoaster match between St Brigid’s and Dingle, and the charity table quiz held recently in aid of Special Olympics Roscommon
It’s Thursday afternoon of last week, and myself and my daughter Tara are off to Dublin to attend the second big event organised by my son Mark and his wife Aoife as part of their Sporting Club Ireland venture.
The venue is the massive Clayton Hotel in Ballsbridge, and on the menu is drinks, photo opportunities, and dinner with – among others – maybe the greatest Irish rugby player of all time, Johnny Sexton.
We got there shortly after five o’clock, and as the event was due to kick off at seven or so, I had time for a snooze and a shower before heading downstairs for what turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable evening. We had a couple of pre-dinner drinks before heading to the dining room, where we found ourselves at a really interesting table.
Among our fellow diners were Tulsk GAA and Creggs RFC’s stalwarts Steve and Callum Fahy, as well as Tyrone football All-Ireland medal winner Conor Meyler, his beautiful girlfriend Thalia Heffernan, and the decorated Antrim hurler Neil McManus.
Neil is a member of the GPA (Gaelic Players Association), and since retiring from hurling has worked as a pundit for both RTE and BBC sorts – so needless to say, as a man who has won a Roscommon county junior football championship medal, and played in a drawn county junior hurling final, I was more than willing to advise the two Northern lads as to what I feel is needed to improve both hurling and football! For some reason they didn’t seem too interested in what I had to say… hard to understand why!
Also in attendance was former Munster centre Barry Murphy, who won four Ireland caps and was a member of the Munster panel when they won the Heineken Cup in 2006.
He had to retire due to ongoing injury problems in 2011, but since then has made his name as a singer in a very successful band called Hermitage Green. I have to say we had great craic with Barry and he’s going to bring the U-6s that he coaches from Bohemians RFC to Creggs in the near future.
Anyway, soon it was time for Johnny’s appearance, and in a wide-ranging interview he pretty much covered the ups and downs of his career, his infamous spat with Ronan O’Gara, as well as the disappointment of the last World Cup. He came across as a very down to earth, grounded person who worked hard to achieve what he had and who appreciates how lucky he has been in his overall career.
And yet it was in a different part of the night that we may have got a better and less well known insight into the kind of man that Johnny Sexton is. The dinner was also acting as a fundraiser for the Debra (Butterfly Skin) Charity, which is dedicated to helping families and sufferers of a rare and painful genetic skin condition that has no known cure.
The condition Debra supports is known as EB, and I don’t claim to be an expert on it, as there are four different types of it, but on Thursday night Claudia Scanlon, who suffers from the most severe form of the disease, and her mother Liz, gave us an insight into the appalling suffering that 21-year-old Claudia has to endure every day of her life. Liz also told us that Johnny Sexton has been involved with the charity from “long before he became a superstar”, and despite his extremely busy life he has never wavered in his support for Debra.
And so, in a peculiar way, despite the fact that Thursday night was a really good social night and thoroughly enjoyed by the more than 160 people who attended, the abiding memory that I brought home with me was a new appreciation of the man – not the rugby player – that Johnny Sexton is. Secondly, I left with a realisation of how lucky most of us are compared to some other people. It’s easy to complain about little things, but we should stop whinging and be thankful for what we have. Claudia Scanlon is an example of how someone can embrace life despite their horrendous struggles.
So close for St Brigid’s
I am writing this on a miserable, wet Monday afternoon and am thinking of the good people of St Brigid’s GAA Club. My heart goes out to them after their heartbreaking loss to Dingle in the All-Ireland Club football final on Sunday.
I know there will be a load of coverage in the sports pages, so all I will say is it was a fantastic game to watch, and as Dingle’s Paul Geaney said, it was a pity either side had to lose.
Sport can be both uplifting and cruel, and on Sunday it certainly was cruel to St Brigid’s. But the great thing about sport is there is always another day – and if ever a team deserves their day in the sun, then St Brigid’s surely do.
I know it’s no consolation, but they did themselves, their club, and their county proud. Even if the big prize eluded them, they will look back (eventually) on a brilliant year.
In rugby, it was a bad weekend for Munster and for Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle, while our western representatives also lost out in the All-Ireland Club hurling final when Loughrea were defeated by Waterford’s Ballygunner. However, unlike with the Brigid’s footballers, there was no hard luck story as the six-point winning margin was a fair enough reflection on the game.
And finally…
I must give a mention of the very successful and enjoyable table quiz that we had in Mikeen’s on Saturday night for Special Olympics Roscommon.
There was a great turnout. I would like to thank all who attended (especially so many young people), all who gave spot prizes, all who bought raffle tickets, Ger Dowd and Daniel Browne for putting the questions together, Jack and Mary Hegarty for collecting the answers, Olivia for doing out the posters and answer sheets, and the same Olivia, as well as Eve and Lorraine, for doing a great job selling tickets. Also, thanks to Mikeen and Carmel O’Rourke for their help in getting everything set up in their premises, and to Killian White, who kindly donated a ton of timber for the auction. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone but if I have, my apologies – it wasn’t meant.
Some time after we got home, myself and Paul revisited an old custom, which has been more or less sidelined since the arrival of my stents and pacemaker and gout and all that kind of stuff. Just like we used to do after nearly every night out, we got out the pan at about two o’clock (in case the guards are reading this, we were home a good while before the pan came out) and had the full Irish. It may not have been what the doctor ordered, but it was delicious!
‘Til next week,
bye for now!
