Kingscourt man is youngest presidents award winner

 

Kingscourt Stars’ Joe Farrelly became the youngest recipient ever of a GAA Presidents Award, after he received his accolade from GAA President Liam Ó Néill at an awards ceremony in Croke Park on Friday night.

The awards are staged annually by the GAA, and provide the GAA President with an opportunity to acknowledge outstanding commitment and long service across the club and county network from people whose highly valued contribution is seldom recognised nationally.

Due to number of incidents involving suicide and depression, Kingscourt Stars decided to draft their own Mental Health Policy.

Having designed a similar policy for St Patrick’s College in Carlow, Joe helped draft this for his club- the first GAA club in Ireland in association with Croke Park to draft such a policy.

Joe was thrilled to receive the award, but also pointed to the effort of all those involved to help bring the policy to fruition.

“It’s an absolute pleasure to get it, and an absolute honour. It’s a pleasure on behalf of the club and on behalf of the county, because it wasn’t just myself,” he told The Anglo-Celt.

“It was a great lot of team work, and a lot of people were involved with it. Being the youngest recipient is an absolute honour, and hopefully I continue doing a bit of work in that area and I would love to keep going.”

The Drogheda-based secondary school teacher says mental health and wellness is a key area of concern for the GAA.

“The GAA is the biggest organisation in Ireland, and that has far reaching consequences.

“Regarding the area of mental health, which I am being recognised for, it affects everybody.

“As Ireland is growing and changing and we hope that mental health gets recognised as a positive thing - no matter what happens - that the GAA has a major role in talking about that sort of thing.”

While the issue is coming to light more at national level, with Cavan’s Alan O’Mara and Dublin footballer Shane Carthy discussing their own issues with depression - it’s an everyday issue affecting all sectors of society.

“The statistics are that one in three people will suffer from a mental health issue during their life, whether young or old - it doesn’t matter.

“Alan is coming to speak at the school I teach in at the moment in Drogheda, and he is a fantastic example of someone who has suffered from mental issues and came through it.

“GAA isn’t something you just play, it’s part of a community that you are involved in. If you are not involved in something, it makes mental health a bigger issue than it should be.

“Getting involved with things and being involved - people help people.”
GAA President Liam Ó Neill was high in his praise of the Kingscourt Stars clubman.

“It’s fantastic that someone of his tender years in GAA terms, he is a very young man, inspired us to do the Healthy Club initiative and to focus on Health and Wellbeing.

“While the rest of the recipients of the awards were reasonably Senior in terms of their GAA involvement and longevity in the GAA, this man is an inspirational young man who has sparked a surge in this part of the GAA.

“I was delighted to make the point that you don’t have to be older to get an award. These are presidential awards - he is the youngest recipient and hugely deserving of it.”

Other award winners included the famous Connor/O’Connor family from Walsh Island in Offaly who received the ‘Dermot Earley Family Award’ and Collie and Eithne Bell from Newry who received the Humanitarian award, for their work with the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust.