Leading Mayo GAA club's volunteers giving back to the community

Everyone's a winner thanks to Easter weekend festival of football

by Dr. Richard Martin

I attended the official launch of the Castlebar Nines Festival.

CRCfm were in attendance. At one point they interviewed Kieran Lavelle (club chairperson, Castlebar Mitchels), Valerie Mulroy (chairperson of the Bord na nÓg) and Teresa Quinn (chairperson, LGFA).

I volunteer on match days in MacHale Park in the Tony Stakelum/hurling shop underneath the main stand and assist with the Under 16 team managed by Declan Shaw.

Anytime I’m on the club grounds I bump into one of the three if not all three. 8.30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. 8.30 p.m. on a Tuesday evening. It doesn’t matter. I cross paths with at least one of them. The trio are ever present in the club.

What drives them? What motivates them? The GAA is unique. Our national sport is a cathedral built by volunteers.

Time. Energy. Sacrifice. All gratis. No motive. No agenda. Just selflessness and goodness.

Valerie is a niece of Peter Murphy, a Mitchels stalwart and volunteer.

Her cousins Stephen and Noel Murphy played for the Mitchels and won numerous county titles. She is steeped in the club from a young age.

Teresa is originally from Cloonfad, and came to Castlebar in 1998 straight after college. Her kids started playing football eight years ago and she got involved in the club thereafter.

I wanted to meet them ahead of the 9’s festival and have a chat.

The following Tuesday we met in my kitchen on Castle Street.

RM: Are you looking forward to it?

VM: It'll be busy, now I suppose there's less to worry about this year because we've had the run of it from last year.

TQ (Teresa Quinn): I suppose there's a job for every volunteer. I've been involved in sourcing the teams and liaising with them to see exactly how many are coming, getting their club bios for the programme. I'm involved with meeting and greeting them on the day, showing them where they're going and welcoming them to Castlebar and all of that. And then there's a lot of just running around, a bit like a headless chicken for the two days!

RM: How many ladies teams are involved.

TQ: So at the minute we have 12 ladies teams confirmed. We had more, but the fixtures for some of the other counties changed and now they have games that are clashing with Easter Sunday.

RM: Where do the teams stay?

TQ: There's Lough Lannagh, there's the Ivy Tower, the Ellison, Breaffy House and all the B&Bs. There's five cottages in Lough Lannagh that are used. The clubs are furnished with the accommodation list and we help them kind of sort that out.

It doesn't matter where they stay because the shuttle bus picks them up in Mitchels and then will drop them to their accommodation. They'll come straight to us initially and they'll go shower and change and come back for the entertainment. And then they're picked up in the morning.

The shuttle bus is just brilliant. From three o'clock until 10, it kind of runs every hour and it goes to all the accommodations.

RM: One of the things Ger McDonagh was keep to say to me is that it is not really a Mitchels event as such; it is a Castlebar event.

VM: Yeah, it's giving back to the community because we're always looking for sponsorship, we're looking for spot prizes, we're looking for the doors to stand at for bucket collections.

We're looking at the whole community of Castlebar to kind of keep us going. And I suppose the club saw the need to give back to the community and that's what they're doing.

We're giving back. The club did an algorithm with Fáilte Ireland and it worked out that we gave back to the community €75,000, which is huge. And it's bigger this year.

TQ: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's why the other accommodation providers and pubs come on board with us because it's not all up in Mitchels.

Yes, the football's up there, there's a certain amount of entertainment, but then very much I suppose the agreement is that we push it all downtown.

VM: Like we could keep the marquee after 10 o'clock but we kind of shut it down and it's down to your pub then that you've been assigned to. And then you build up a relationship there and then you're back the next night and then it's on to the Ivy Tower then on the Sunday.

RM: Very good, And I suppose the publicans, they must be all thrilled?

VM: They're behind us. Prendergast’s have given us their licence again this year. So it's huge and they’re delighted.

We've seen after the rugby, the town was hopping and it was just a phenomenal success.

TQ: There's very much a family vibe. Do you know what I mean? So that's with the kids entertainment as well. Even if you're not awfully interested in the football and you're looking forward to the entertainment, it's come to the entertainment.

VM: There's going to be the fire engine and both days we have a colour competition of our new mascot, Mitch. We have face painting which is being done by the Under 12 girls and there is dancing with Sandra Ganley.

It's a festival vibe and that's what you're trying to get and it's from six o'clock onwards, there's no kids allowed in the marquee from six onwards. Now that doesn't say they can't be on the grounds out of the marquee.

RM: How many people are involved in the Nines Festival? How many are volunteers?

VM: Oh gosh, well going on last year's numbers, you were up on the guts of a hundred. I would say a hundred per day.

TQ: We had volunteers manning the dressing rooms. We had to have people obviously keeping all their stuff safe.

Then there's the people making the tea and coffee, then there's the other stewards on top of the rest.

VM: There's people doing the food, keeping an eye on that, the portable toilets, you have the people in the kids zone. People in the carpark. So, there's an awful lot of people needed to run the whole event.

RM: Next topic, rugby match?

VM: Huge success.

RM: Did you enjoy it?

TQ: Oh yeah. It was a lot of work now. Didn't see much of the actual rugby! I saw three minutes! But it was, it was a huge, huge success for the town and for the county.

TQ: And like the amount of volunteers who came together from all the clubs.

RM: How many?

VM: We had 145. About 115 from Mitchels and 30 from Castlebar Rugby Club.

VM: Fingers crossed.

TQ: We'd love it to happen again.

RM: I think it will.

TQ: Yeah. I'd be surprised if Connacht didn't feel it was a success. I mean, it's their biggest crowd.

VM: I think they'd actually get more. I think they would because it was ran so successfully.

RM: And it develops rugby in the county as well.

VM: But it just shows you what we as a community and as a town can provide, to something that can be utilised an awful lot more as in MacHale Park.

RM: Because it was historic and we also have Westport beside us.

VM: But not only that, like it's very easy to get in and out of our grounds and stadium. And we have like the whole town behind us.

TQ: We just need to start promoting ourselves as a tourist, sports tourism town.

RM: I'd say the people in Connacht Rugby just couldn't believe all the volunteers in the club and, you know, they did it. We ran the shops.

VM: We ran the shops, had the bar. The utilisation of the complex was brilliant. The parking, you know, we had the local bowling alley giving us the car parks.

You had Pat Rowland, who is a phenomenal asset to this town. He gave the car parks as well. He was one of the main organisers along with Jimmy Staunton.

RM: They were the brains really.

TQ: And huge supporters of the Mitchels.

VM: Huge. Great. Elvery's in general are just brilliant. And they do it in a very unassuming way.

VM: Oh, unbelievable. Unbelievable. To bring a concert home. There are two local lads in the band. I think it would be phenomenal.

I think the atmosphere would be just electric. And I just think like if you brought them to town, what else could you bring?

I think it's just a case of showcasing the town and showing what can be done. And even if it's just once a year that we get something like that.

Do you know, it would be brilliant. To me, it's like. It's a no brainer.

RM: Well, I think people would say to me it's too far west, right? But that's what some would say, it was too far west.

VM: You've rail access. You've city links. You've Knock Airport. How many people fly Knock to Birmingham or Manchester to concerts because it's cheaper to go there than it is to go to Dublin.

RM: If it just happens once and we can get it over the line.

TQ: You've seen other GAA clubs and other sporting venues host concerts, like Pearse Stadium.

VM: If we just got it once, I think we would set the precedent that we can do this. Once it happens, it'll happen again.

That was just a small sample of the conversation over the kitchen table.

I was blown away by their passion and commitment to the club and the town. I remember our town in the full bloom of the Celtic Tiger, when the town was packed to the rafters every weekend.

The crash of the late noughties devastated the country but it seemed to hit our town that bit harder.

A town like Castlebar needs to be on the map. Flynn had us their before. You christen your own child first.

The Nines Festival and the recent interprovincial rugby match are steps in the right direction.

Finally, as a town we seem to be coming back to ourselves.

People like Valerie and Teresa are making things happen. Actions speak louder than words.

We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.