Big day of action ahead to launch Laochra Mhaigh Eo
The Laochra Mhaigh Eo fundraiser will be formally launched today (Wednesday) and for Mayo GAA supporters, it will be a St. Patrick's Day to remember. The action will get under way at 12 noon.
When completed, the celebration wall at MacHale Park, Castlebar, will commemorate past successful teams, people and achievements associated with Mayo GAA throughout the years.
High quality ceramic wall tiles featuring personalised and engraved messages of acknowledgement and congratulation to Mayo’s GAA heroes, as personally worded by the donors sponsoring each tile, will be situated within the ground, forming a lasting tribute to the players, coaches, volunteers and global fanbase.
The idea behind the initiative is to raise funds for the MacHale Park playing surface, as Mayo GAA County Board chairman Liam Moffatt explained.
He said: “If you look at MacHale Park, there are great spectator facilities, great team facilities, great gyms, it's got very large capacity, but the ground itself hasn't been keeping up with the surroundings. Mayo County Board have been very conscious of that.
“There have been drainage issues, questions over the length of it, etc, and they've all been assessed. So the Mayo County Board wants to improve the playing surface and make it a top class pitch.
“There are two major concepts really: one is the facilities work or the development of the pitch, and the second is the ongoing maintenance, because as you know top class pitches are only as good as the investments put into them going forward.
“Laochra Mhaigh Eo is an interesting project in that it combines a sense of community, in that someone can put a loved one's name up on a wall at MacHale Park, with the sense of history, in that those All-Ireland winning teams of the past are honoured at MacHale Park, and it brings into focus a development project, such as the resurfacing of the pitch. It's a really, really good project and something we should be optimistic about.”
Large scale
The chairman of the Laochra Mhaigh Eo committee, Ciaran O'Hara, is delighted with the opportunity afforded by St. Patrick's Day this year to launch the project on a large scale.
“We were waiting for an opportunity when we could launch on a larger platform, and one of the things that came up in the sub-committee meetings was to try and bookend our activity or our fundraising drive between St. Patrick's Day and Mayo Day,” he said.
“St. Patrick's Day this year gives us a great opportunity, at a time when people would traditionally be more occupied, to give them some nice content. We've got all the county managers lined up, we've got some great stories from players of the past, some great stories about tiles that are being erected and the stories behind them, and I just think it will give people, in a number of bulletins over the course of the day, some worthwhile content while we get to promote what Laochra Mhaigh Eo is.”
Interest has been high so far, and it's going outside of the confines of the GAA as well, Ciaran outlined. “People are seeing it as a real opportunity to recognise heroes across Mayo generally. My own family, we're clubbing together to get a tile for my uncle. That's when I saw really that this is the value of Laochra Mhaigh Eo – that I get to honour my uncle alongside teams that he grew up adoring.”
The idea was inspired by a scheme at the Emirates Stadium in north London, home of Arsenal FC, while Leitrim GAA have successfully implemented a similar undertaking, using the same company that Mayo GAA is working with, which funded their centre of excellence.
Ciaran is confident that Laochra Mhaigh Eo will be a success as well. “We are very hopeful that is we can sell the 1,200 tiles, we can carry out the work that is required. This project is entirely ring-fenced for MacHale Park so any surplus would go towards other developments or maintenance of the ground. This is all about future-proofing a stadium that turns 90 years old this week.”
“People are aware that we need a new surface in MacHale Park, that we need to raise the money for it, and what we're trying to give people in return is the opportunity to honour personal or individual heroes, and a nice by-product is that we get to honour great Mayo teams of the past as well.”
While there is uncertainty regarding the start of club and county activities this year, Mr. Moffatt insists that Mayo will play their home league and championship games in MacHale Park this year. “We're very much in a position to support our teams and we're going to try and facilitate that as much as we can,” he stated.
The action commences at 12 p.m. today. Supporters can tune in across the various Mayo GAA social media channels, and you can find out more about the project at www.themayoheroeswall.com.