O’Connor brothers share sporting memories

MY  Great Sporting Memories – from Local Club to Olympic Games is the title of a book written by 72 of Ireland’s best-known sportspersons and sports journalists, which has just been launched.
Among the contributors are brothers, Jamesie and Christy O’Connor from Barefield.
Jamesie, winner of two All-Ireland hurling medals in 1995 and ’97, scoring the winning point in both finals, has a chapter entitled For Club, County and Province. Jamesie, acknowledged as one of Clare’s best-ever forwards, now shares his views on hurling as an analyst with TV3 as well as in a newspaper column.
Rising Fog Heralds Sunny Day for St Joseph’s is the title of the chapter by Christy O’Connor, author and sports feature writer. Christy played in goal for his club and was on the Clare panel for a number of years. His award-winning book, The Club charts the ups and down of a year in St Joseph’s Doora Barefield. He also wrote Last Man Standing, a book which looks at a season through the eyes of top goalkeepers.
The book was launched last week by one of Ireland’s greatest athletes, Ronnie Delany, who won an Olympic gold in the 1,500m at Melbourne in 1956.
The compilation covers many of the most exciting and glamorous moments in Irish sport: from the clamour of Croke Park to the excitement of an Olympic stadium.
My Great Sporting Memories brings some of sport’s most iconic arenas and into the hearts and minds of the sportspersons whose memories populate the chapters of the book.
Sporting greats including Henry Shefflin, Katie Taylor, Colm Cooper and Jamie Heaslip, pay tribute to the clubs and communities where their talents were nurtured.
It offers the reader an opportunity to appreciate some of the emotions, the hardships and the highs and lows experienced by sportspersons or witnessed by sports journalists. 
The purpose of  My Great Sporting Memories is to raise funds for Chernobyl Children International (CCI) to mark the 25th anniversary of the disaster that shocked the world and destroyed people’s lives and those of generations yet unborn.
The book is compiled and published by Lorcán O’Rourke who worked with the GAA and the Irish Handball Council from 1980 to 2009. Contact lorcanorourke@eircom.net for more information.