Clare hurling boss, Davy Fitzgerald took a break from mentoring his players recently to help young Noah Sheedy from Ogonnelloe achieved his goal by overcoming literacy issues.
Davy challenged 12-year-old Noah, from Bealkelly to commentate on the recent Clare and Dublin hurling game in Cusack Park for broadcast on the RTÉ One series, The Family Project, to help him develop his confidence and focus to defeat educational issues that affect his life.
Noah is about to start secondary school and has difficulty maintaining attention and seeing projects through to the end.
To combat this, Davy worked with parents, Paschal and Vanessa to devise a commentary challenge for Noah to complete, which encouraged him to stay focused and realise the importance of taking a project through the various stages to completion.
With a little guidance along the way from legendary broadcasters Michéal O’Muircheartaigh and Marty Morrissey, Noah studied the players and statistics and attempted to commentate on the live inter-county hurling match between Dublin and Clare.
With Davy’s help, the family all pulled together to help Noah prepare for his project, including Noah’s granddad, Séan, who offered first hand advice having commentated in local matches in the 80’s.
Together, the family helped Noah memorise the players and jot down nuggets of information that he could use in his commentary.
Speaking about the challenge Davy Fitzgerald said, “I wanted to come up with something that would bring out his confidence and help him make the transition; something that would have him buzzing when the project was finished.”
The Family Project featuring Noah and Davy goes out on Monday, June 9 at 7.30pm on RTÉ One.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.