Four Masters GAA Club Presentation

Double winners of Senior Reserve League and Championship 2001

Francis Dinsmore Memorial Dinner

Pictured at the Francis Dinsmore Memorial Dinner -
Greg McGroary, Charlie McGinty, Keith Anderson,
Kevin Sinclair, Gary Prenderville

Prior to Christmas, Donegal Town RFC held a very successful dinner and dance in memory of Francis Dinsmore in the Mill Park Hotel with the purpose of raising money to provide equipment for the Donegal Home Hospice Group.

The event started with a dinner that was attended by over 200 people. During the meal Trevor Johnson delivered a moving and humorous speech in tribute to Francis and the contribution that he had made to the local community especially the rugby club. Francis’s wife Annette bravely responded by thanking everyone present for supporting the event and for all the support that the local community had given her during the time leading up to his death and since. She also paid tribute to the Home Hospice (represented at the dinner by Bridie Mullan) who had provided the monitoring equipment that helped her tremendously.

A game of stand up bingo also took place between two of the courses and the winner was Dr. Alfie Mannion who won a weekend for two in Kerry (donated by the Mill Park Hotel) and £250 spending money. However the main purpose of the game was to raise money and thanks to everyone in the room taking part - £1100 was made from this one event. A draw was also held for a weekend for two in Clare (donated by the Mill Park Hotel) Heather Deane won this.

After the dinner everyone was well entertained by the Barflies for the rest of the evening. During the dance a very successful raffle was held with the proceeds for this going to the Rugby Club (Francis Dinsmore would never have forgiven us if the club had not benefited in some way from the evening). An auction was also held under the hammer of Keith Anderson and this raised over £2,500 with all items donated.

In total the Dinner & Dance raised approximately £10,000on the night and the money is to be held in a fund for the Donegal Home Hospice to provide equipment to help seriously ill patients who are being looked after at home. We have already purchased an additional two complete sets of TV and audio monitoring equipment and are in the process of purchasing some reclining armchairs at the moment.

Donegal RFC would like to thank the Mill Park Hotel, especially Tony Mc Dermott, Gavin Boyle and Brendan Malone. The hotel could not do enough for us.

We would also like to thank the following for their very generous donations towards the auction, bingo and raffles. Without their help we would not have raised the amount that we did: The Mill Park Hotel, Meehan’s Carpet Centre, The Scotsman’s, The National Hotel, Dunleavy’s Garage, Jack Britton, Ciaran Kelly, Victor Kearney, Gareth Britton, Alrick Thompson, McGarrigle Framing, DMG. Motors, Pat Britton and The Irish Permanent. Several donations of money were also made by Magee’s, The Townawilly Community Centre, Jackie McGroarty, Gerard Tighe, Eddie Mc Cafferty, Mary Browne and Lorraine Kerrigan (sponsored fast), Cathal Campbell and Townawilly V Leghowney Golf Society.

It was a night that Francis would have been proud of and a fitting tribute to a man who gave so much of his own time voluntarily for the benefit of the local community.

The club is seriously considering making this an annual event in order to raise funds for various deserving causes and hopefully if we do decide to do this, the people of Donegal Town and surroundings areas will support us again.

On Friday 15th March is the Rugby Club fund raising dance in Dom Breslin’s Disco Bar. Tickets are now on sale from the committee and players. If the previous nights are anything to go by it will be a great night out and a good start to your St. Patrick’s weekend. Please support us by purchasing a ticket if asked and make sure you are there on the night to enjoy it. We have a door prize draw, raffle and an auction as well as great live music supplied by the Barflies.

Tir Chonaill AC Dominate National Relays

Tir Chonaill AC Athletets at National Indoor relays - Geraldine Stewart, Louise Peoples, Mary McLoone, Ciaran McBrearty.
Front: Michelle Harvey, Eithen McLoone, Jackie Harvey, Catherine Harvey, Sinead Peoples

At the national track and field relays in Nenagh on Sunday, Tir Chonaill athletic club once again demonstrated that they have one of the finest womens squad’s in the country. In a very impressive display, the team returned with five gold, one silver and one bronze medal – a sweep that saw them fail to win a medal in only one of the eight events.

The National relays are one of the most entertaining events on the calendar, where as well as the familiar track relays, the programme also includes field events in which the performance of two athletes from each club are added to give the club score.

It was Geraldine Stewart and Mary McLoone - two of the clubs top class combined event athletes who were most impressive during the day. Both athletes proved beyond doubt that they are among the finest all round athletes in the country at the moment. Geraldine, who recently broke the county shot putt record, once again exceeded the 12-metre barrier. This combined with a putt of 8.40 metres by Mary to give the girls a combined total of 20.40m and victory ahead of a large field. Borrisokane finished second with 19.48m while Navan took the bronze with 19.31.

The same two girls then lined out in the 60metre hurdles relay, an event in which a heavy fall the previous day had forced Mary to withdraw from the national combined events. However 24 hours later, it was an entirely different story as her silken smooth run took Tir Chonaill to another gold in 19.2 seconds, after Geraldine had handed over in third place. The silver and bronze went to Cork clubs Leevale and Belgooly in 20.5 sec and 20.8 sce respectively.

From there they headed to the long jump pit where a superb jump of 5.48m by Mary – the longest she has ever recorded indoors and a new personal best of 5.08m by Geraldine, completed a golden hat-trick for the pair.

Indeed the medal haul did not stop there for either athlete. Geraldine combined with Catherine Harvey in the high jump where both cleared 1.55m to take yet another gold with a total of 3.10m. Dundrum South Dublin and Na Fianna finished in a tie for second with totals of 2.95m. Mary also secured another gold in the company of her sister Eithne, this time in the triple jump. Best jumps of 11.27 for Mary and 9.98 for Eithne left them a full metre clear of runners up Dundrum, South Dublin. This completed a first ever clean sweep of the field events for any club at this competition.

On the track a number of very competitive races secured even more medals for Tir Chonaill. The Peoples sisters Sinead and Louise teamed up with Michelle Harvey in the 3x800metres. Sinead lead the team out and an excellent time of 2mins 18 seconds gave Tir Chonaill the lead over a hard chasing St Lawrence O’Tooles AC from Carlow and the students of UCD. Sinead handed over to her sister Louise who, despite being overtaken by her Carlow opponent, dug in bravely to give the baton to Michelle Harvey 4 metres behind. Michelle then faced an extremely tough task as vastly experienced international Geraldine Hendricken was running the final leg for St Lawerence O’Tooles. Michelle closed the gap over the initial laps but over the closing stages Hendricken pulled away to bring victory to the Carlow club. Tir Chonaill took the silver with a time of 7min 13 sec, while the bronze went to UCD.

Early in the day in the 4x400metres heats a quartet of Michelle Harvey, Sinead Peoples, Jackie Harvey and Mary McLoone qualified for the final as fourth fastest team. However, in the final later in the afternoon a determined display in which Michelle, Sinead and Mary all posted times of 62 seconds with Jackie coming in with 68 seconds was not enough to beat Dundrum and Metro St Bridgets who took gold and silver but overcome a very good Leevale quartet to take the bronze in what was a very exciting contest. Incidentally the only event on the day in which Tir Chonaill did not feature among the medals was the 4x200metres relay, but had Ruth Little, Emma O Doherty and Siobhan Mc Glynn all been present that event could also have earned the club a top three placing.

In the men’s competition a young pairing of Kieran McBrearty and Michael Curran finished an excellent 4th in the triple jump with a combined total of 22.61 metres. In the high jump Kieran cleared 1.70m and Michael 1.60m to earn 7th place among a huge field.

The final event of the day, the inter-County walk ended controversially as Donegal were disqualified due to one competitor walking a lap less than the required distance. However overall it was a fantastic day for the county’s athletes and indicates that the remainder of the indoor season and the outdoor season to follow could bring many more rewards.

Geraldine Stewart outstanding performance in Glasgow

Geraldine Stewart and Cathal McGinley at Scottish Multi-events in the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow

Last weekend Donegal athletes competed with success at a number of venues.The Kelvin Hall,Glasgow, was a happy hunting ground for Geraldine Stewart [Tir Chonaill AC] -the occasion was the Scottish Indoor Multi events. The National Indoor Arena at the Univ. of Wales in Cardiff was the venue for a home countries International. Here Tir Chonaill pair Emma O’Doherty and Michelle Harvey had top three placings. Meanwhile the Irish Intermediatre and Veterans Cross Country c/ships took place at the Finn Valley Centre and Donegal county teams and the host club took the lions share of the spoils. Finally our young athletes from Letterkenny, Finn Valley and St John Bosco travelled to Nenagh for the Irish under age multi-event c/ships.

In Glasgow

Multi-events is about all round athleticism - you have to be skilled in hurdling, throwing, jumping and endurance. Geraldine Stewart [Tir Chonaill] was forced to skip the Irish c/ships two weeks ago because of study committments but made amends in the Kelvin Hall when the Scottish Multi events were held last Sunday. Her overall score of 3401pts -nearly 200pts better than the winning total of Orna O’Donoghue at the Irish C/ships - found the Donegal Town girl competing literally ‘out of her skin’. She had three personal best performances-in the 60m Hurdles,Shot Putt and 800m and an overall best by more than 200pts Geraldine ran 9.99 secs in the 60m Hurdles and was placed 4th on the overall scorings. She followed up with a 1.59m best in the High Jump -best jump in three years and in the Shot Putt with the longest throws by an Irish woman this year -12.41m -moved into a top three place. Aileen Wilson [Peterborough] -the new sensation of British athletics, -she won the World Youth c/ships last year- was always going to be the outright winner. The battle for the minor placings was always going to be close. In the Long Jump Geraldine, from behind the board, had a best of 4.92m. The final event - the 800m- is not a favourite of multi event athletes. Scottish Internationals Kristy Rodger [City of Glasgow] and Sarash Still [Aberdeen] plus Geraldine all had realistic hopes of finishing in second place- only 120pts seperated the three. With a time of 2mins 26.54 secs the Tir Chonaill athlete had 5 secs and 7 secs to spare over Still and Rodger. The calculators were brought into play. Roger 3405pts, Stewart 3401 Still 3259pts.

The Scottish Vets c/ships were held in conjunction with the Multi events. Jackie Harvey [Tir Chonaill] added the V2 800m to the Irish title she won in Nenagh two weeks ago -time 2mins 31.26 secs

In Cardiff

Michelle Harvey 800m and Emma ODoherty 60m Hurdles finished 2nd and 3rd at the Home Countries Indoor international in Cardiff. Both were part of a very successful Irish team .

At Finn Valley

The Finn Valley club hosted the prestigious National Intermediate and Veterans Inter county and club cross country c/ships at Edenmore on Sunday. Donegal and FinnValley won the Vets titles -Mens while the Donegal womens Vets were also victorious.Pat Hegarty, Dominic Bonner, Noleen Porter and Kay Byrne were the lead runners from the county in this event

At Nenagh

Maread Doherty Letterkenny in3rd place Under 16 -2714 pts, Julie Anne Murphy [St John Bosco] 4th Under 14 girls, Joeanne English Letterkenny 5th Under 16 girls and Joe McGinley Finn Valley 7th Under 16 boys were the counties top scorers when the Irish Juvenile multi events were held at Nenagh on Sunday last