Austin Stacks GAA Club News

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STACKS 100: Club Secretary, Elma Nix, reminds all club members that our Award Winning Stacks 100 website is now available to view – check out club memories, matches & podcasts – a great way to spend an enjoyable few minutes or hours and hours and hours . . . www.stacks100.ie.

COMMUNITY COVID 19 RESPONCE: Kerry Co Council’s coordinated Covid-19 response, supported by Kerry GAA, continues to provide this wonderful service in these difficult times.

Austin Stacks have now amalgamated our own Club Community Response with this initiative. Anyone seeking assistance is asked to phone the Kerry COVID-19 Community Helpline for non-emergency and non-medical assistance: Need a delivery of fuel?  Need a delivery of food/groceries? Need a delivery of medical supplies?  Need other advice or support? Pick up the phone and ring 1800 807 009.

Kerry Co Council will contact Austin Stacks, our thanks to Ciara Nix for managing these calls.  Ciara & Wayne Quillinan will match the call-out to one of our club volunteers who have signed up to help.

We try in so far as possible to match calls which are local to our volunteers. This has worked very well and in many cases a rapport has built up between our volunteers and those seeking assistance so much so that as the weeks go by we are finding that callers often revert directly to their club contact when they need a grocery run etc.

To date we have assisted with approx 40 calls directly but we believe that number is substantially higher if direct requests to club volunteers is factored in. So a huge thank you to all our wonderful volunteers – you are a credit to your club.

GAELTACHT SUMMER COURSES/SCHOLARSHIPS: Due to the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic and the impact it’s having on cultural events throughout the country the Irish/Gaeilge Summer Courses held in the Chorcha Dhuibhne area of West Kerry and the annual GAA Gaeltacht Scholarship scheme have all been cancelled for 2020.

SENIOR FOOTBALL: Tim McMahon’s project, where he has invited all interested to vote for the best 15 to have lined out with The Rock SF Men’s team in Co. Championship football for the past 30 seasons (1990-2019) has now concluded with the final two positions now decided.

There was no contest, as expected, for the full forward position – Kieran Donaghy the out and out winner. The number 15 position however was ‘touch and go’ with Mikey Collins eventually coming out on top.

So for the record the following again are the 15 players voted by all those who participated in this very popular contest – Michael Hussey, Liam Liddy, Barry Shanahan, Pat Slattery, Pa McCarthy, Pa Laide, Ronan Shanahan, William Kirby, Wayne Guthrie, Denis Sayers, Darren Aherne, Daniel Bohan, Owen Moynihan, Kieran Donaghy and Mikey Collins.

Thanks again to Tim McMahon for a job well done. And let’s not forget his sister, Elma Nix for the brilliant job she continues to do on a daily basis, ably assisted by her daughter Ciara, in making our website one of the best anywhere. For example, just look at the jersey imagery produced as part of the Best 15 project. Superb.

HURLING: It’s now over to the Hurlers to select their team and we have a total of 129 players to choose from over the past 30 years (as against 115 footballers) with many of them, like the footballers, lining out in many different positions in the various games they played.

Ger Scollard is hard at it organizing this event which got underway at the weekend. As we write the first two positions have been decided with the goalkeeper’s jersey going to Peter Doyle and the number 2 jersey going to Kevin O’Leary.

CONGRATULATIONS: You will see from the second above paragraph where Liam Liddy won the number 2 spot on the football team of 1990-2019. And what did Liam do in the middle of all this – he became a grandfather.

His son, Seán, who lives in Wicklow, and partner, Rose, had a baby girl, Grace on 21st April. So congratulations to Liam and Noreen and of course to Seán and Rose on this great news. If you go to page 89 of our Centenary Book you will see a very young Seán, together a very young Stephen Enright, Martin Moriarty and Fiona Barrett, all four who were team mascots at the 1994 Co. SF Final.

CLUBHOUSE: Our Bar and Clubhouse remain closed until further notice.

CARDS: Likewise our 45 Card Sessions on Monday and Thursday nights are also on hold.

GREETINGS: And mention of Cards let us wish one of our regular Card Players, Dico Brien, Connolly Park a very happy birthday on this coming Thursday (30th April), Dico celebrates a special one on this occasion.

LOTTO: Our Lotto is also out of action for the time being.

SYMPATHY:  Sincere sympathy is also offered to the families of the following who died recently – Very Rev. Fr. Liam Comer, Ardfert and formerly Clonakilty and St. Brendan’s Parish, Tralee: Jim O’Driscoll, Castle Demesne; Ella McCarthy (nee Harte), Mounthawk and formerly Clonakilty; and Paddy Downey, Old Marian Park and formerly Caherina (one of the greatest Handballers ever to come out of Kerry winning All Ireland titles both singles and doubles – doubles with his partner Jimmy O’Brien – back in the late 1950s/early60s).

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