How the drive to help Féile has brought Garnish together

The appeal for little Féile O’Sullivan has raised over €727,000 so far and it has brought a community together.

Féile O’Sullivan from Allihies Co Cork lost both legs in a devastating farm accident. Picture courtesy of Garnish GAA

At the outset of the year, Garnish GAA club was on its knees. Two years shy of its centenary anniversary, what had been a beacon in Beara was crumbling.

With only 40 paid-up members, the furthest club from Croke Park on this island was living hand to mouth, relying on its diaspora as much as its local community. 

Going home has never been a chore for the likes of Garnish chairman, former Cork footballer and U20 and minor selector Ollie Rue O’Sullivan, who lives in Ballincollig. Or for secretary Cormac McMahon, who resides in Kilcullen in Co Kildare. But the asks were getting bigger for the junior outfit and the playing numbers smaller.

Matters came to a head earlier this year when members of the club’s executive met the county board in what could only be described as crisis talks. “When we went to the wall last year and the decisions were made to go back and see ‘can we merge’ and ‘can we do this’, it wasn't fitting anywhere,” recalls O’Sullivan. “We spoke to all the clubs on the peninsula and the options just weren’t there.

“We met the (county) executive and were told if we decided to merge with someone, it was over. Complete divorce, you finish, that's it, you're gone and there's no such thing as you can come back in two years or three years.

“None of us in the room including the county board wanted that and to be fair the executive said they would help us with anything we did to help the club to survive. They supported us every step of the way.”

Recruitment was the club’s first priority. Former Garnish players, who had retired from higher grade clubs, were approached about returning to line out. More shape was put on training too. “We set up a group in Cork where we would have always trained somewhere one night a week anyway, but John Kelly, a very proud member of the club, came on board just to put some structure on it. He coordinated with the lads when and what they were doing.” 

Seven players agreed to tog out, which completely reenergised the group and they reached the Beara junior B final where last month they just lost out to Glengarriff after extra-time in a replay. That supplemented the efforts the club have been making at under-age level to augment the numbers playing football.

Making Páirc Gairinis a home to be proud of had been an objective prior to the recruitment drive. Floodlighting the pitch and creating a walkway around it was achieved this year thanks to a government sport capital grant and the club’s fundraising activities.

After raffling a Massey Ferguson tractor four years ago, the executive came up with the idea of a running/walking event 'The Beast of Beara', which had been a 19km race over three mountains but evolved into a half-marathon over the same rugged terrain this year.

The club were in the middle of organising that event this past July when 15 days before juvenile member Féile O’Sullivan suffered a serious farming accident. Both of her legs later had to be amputated while she has undergone over 50 operations.

An emergency meeting of 'The Beast' organising committee was called and it was agreed proceeds from it would go to Féile. On top of that, a “standforFéile” awareness campaign was raised along with a GoFundMe page.

O’Sullivan and fellow members contacted the likes of John Cleary, Pat Ryan and Patrick Horgan to make short videos showing their support for Féile and the trend exploded across social media.

Today, the amount raised stands at over €727,000 with another €25,000 from a Kerry Men’s Association in Cork to be lodged this week. A specialised vehicle for Féile was presented by the All-Ireland GAA Golf Challenge held in Killarney last month, while there are two upcoming concerts in aid of the 13-year-old. Former Cork stars Barry Coffey and Ger Cunningham are organising golf classics in Cork and Kerry next year.

It's been a phenomenally successful cause for a small community that has enshrined Garnish and Allihies’s sense of belonging. “The one thing that Féile did was bring everybody together,” says O’Sullivan.

As far as the club development goes, the lights are shining and the walkway should be finished this side of Christmas. O’Sullivan can’t say enough about what the Allihies Men’s Shed, community centre and Copper Museum have done for the club. “They see it as a rising tide lifts all boats. We give them a bit of money from ‘The Beast of Beara’, we support them, and they support us.” 

Garnish came to further attention earlier this month when Cian O’Sullivan won Dublin’s first hurling All Star in 12 years. His father Traolach is a Garnish man. “I would have played with Traolach,” says O’Sullivan. “Cian was down in Allihies during the summer. He and we are very proud of our roots.” 

With his adopted Ballincollig, O’Sullivan led the minor footballers to a Premier 1 title last year but there is only one home. “The savage loves his native shore. I've never made a secret of that, no matter where I've gone. I'm a Garnish man, through and through.” 

What the club are contending with now is nothing new. It seems like the existential threat of rural depopulation has always been there but there is hope. This year supplied bundles of it.

“I remember back in the mid-80s, I played my first adult game with Garnish at 14 and that wasn't because I was good, it was because they really needed players,” O’Sullivan recounts. “There was no-one there. We had mass immigration and a big recession.

“I just believe the tide will turn again and hopefully we'll have numbers and we keep doing the work. It’s for the two generations behind me now, the kids in the parish like Féile that deserve to have an identity at a club and to be able to wear their own colours and speak about it no matter where they go in the world.”