Awards for Cumann na mBunscol an Chláir

Cumann na mBunscol an Chláir collected two awards at this year’s Cumann na mBunscoil national awards night held in Croke Park recently.

Members of the executive, all from the Holy Family Senior School in Ennis, were in attendance to accept the awards from GAA president Christy Cooney.
The Holy Family school staff took over as The Clare Champion-sponsored Cumann na mBunscoil Executive last February.
The group won first prize for the Cumann na mBunscoil website. This has been an ongoing project for the schools in Clare involved in Cumann na mBunscoil. Since the Holy Family school’s appointment to the executive, Eilis Faherty and Hugh Connolly successfully took over the project of updating and extending the website, which was started a number of years ago by Barefield National School and continued by Cloughleigh National School.
The second nominated category was the GAA 125th anniversary celebrations and the Clare efforts were rewarded with second prize.
Those in attendance included Margaret Cooney, Sarah Barnes, Seán O’Neill, Majella Lillis, Barbara Guilfoyle, Jillian Bridge, David McCormack and Declan Bell.

Hall of fame award for Durack
Accepting the Munster hall of fame hurling award at a function in Dungarvan last Saturday night, former Clare goalkeeper Seamus Durack called on the GAA to address the issue of payments being made to people to coach/manage club teams.
The winner of two national league medals with Clare in 1977 and 1978 said that he had up to eight approaches from clubs in the past year asking him to get involved in the preparation of their team. “The second question they will ask you is how much do you charge.”
The Feakle native, who managed Clare in the mid-’80s and who has managed Éire Óg and coached Newmarket senior sides in recent times said that the player disputes in Clare, Limerick and Cork were ‘farcical’.
Durack was one of three Clare award winners on ­Saturday night. Cratloe GAA were honoured with the club of the year award and representing the club were Pat O’Gorman (chairman), Siobhán O’Gorman (secretary) and Mary Considine (treasurer).
The Munster U-21 player of the year award was won by Darach Honan and the award was accepted by his father Colm, who was a Clare team-mate of Seamus Durack during the ’70s.
Meanwhile, at a function
in Dublin last Friday night
the national referees association honoured members who took charge of finals during 2009.
Three Clare referees, Seanie McMahon, Ger Hoey and Michael McGann, were ­honoured at the function when they received their medals from association president Christy Cooney.