APRIL 2016 NUACHTLITIR AIBREÁN 2016 FOR NEWS, VIDEOS AND FIXTURES www.gaa.ie Football Hurling Club General LAOCHRA - IT’S FINALLY HERE! fter months of planning and It is also, however, the exact Centenary to 82,300 capacity and add to the sense of preparation, the countdown is the day that the first shots were fired in the occasion with audience participation set to really on to April 24 at Croke Rising of 1916 in Dublin. be a key element of the festivities. Park and the LAOCHRA show Awhich will follow the Allianz Division 1 And the events at Croke Park on April 24 A limited number of 1,916 tickets went and 2 football league finals and will mark will mark the GAA’s main contribution to up for sale at a discounted price and were the GAA’s official commemoration of the the national calendar of events to mark the snapped up and everything is on course for 1916 Easter Rising. Rising. a special day. Tickets cost €35 for adults and €5 for It’s already shaping up to be a very special Such is the scale and impact of the show Under16s and are available from tickets.ie day with Tyrone and Cavan meeting in an that a decision was taken not to try and eagerly anticipated Division 2 final as new cram it into the interval between the generations of Red Hand and Breffni stars Division 2 and Division 1 finals. showcase their considerable talents. It will now take place after the Division 1 Then we have the magnificent prospect of trophy has been presented and will feature a repeat of the All-Ireland final when Dublin all four teams who play in Croke Park that take on Kerry with Jim Gavin’s men looking day along with a sizeable cast of performers to win a staggering fourth straight league and musicians from here and abroad. crown and Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s Kingdom eager to halt Dublin’s run of big match This is one of those occasions when being victories over them. there will be a special moment for those lucky enough to get their hands on a ticket. And then there is LAOCHRA. Hopes are high that it will be an occasion to remember and rank alongside great This is a specially commissioned 35 minute events in the stadium’s recent past like the show put together by the world-renowned 2003 Special Olympics opening ceremony, Tyrone Productions company and is being the first floodlit match of 2007 or the billed as one of Croke Park’s ‘unmissable Dublin-Tyrone 125 celebration match of events.’ 2009 when the stadium was packed to the rafters. Sunday, April 24 is already a big day in the GAA calendar as it will be when the Allianz A rallying call is to be made for GAA fans Niall Kelly, left, Athy GAA Club, Co. Kildare, and Tony Kelly, Ballyhea GAA Club, Co. Clare, football league Division 1 and 2 finals are from every club in the country to be there with Irish Wolfhounds Aoife and Meabh at Croke Park for the launch of the Laochra show which saw the staged. on the day and help fill Croke Park to its GAA issue a rallying call to every club in the country to make an effort to be present on April 24 Football Hurling Club General ARMAGH HERO RECALLS HIS STRUGGLE WITH GAMBLING AND WARNS GAA MEMBERS TO EDUCATE THEMSELVES TO ITS DANGERS by Cian Murphy isín McConville was 14 years old was, for me, just like a drug addict getting a when he was in the bookies for heroin shot. To put a bet on would give me a the first time to put a bet on a sense of relief. But that relief would only last horse in the Grand National. He for the length of time that the race lasted. Ocan’t remember now whether the horse If it was a two minute race it only lasted two won or lost – but he knows from that minutes and then I had the urge to bet again.” moment on he was hooked on gambling. Defeat brought denial. The next one was It was a different world. There was none of always going to be the winner. the mod cons of today’s bookmaker shops with their banks of flat screen TVs, shining Looking back now McConville knows that surfaces, comfy sofas and coffee machines. he actually wasn’t a good gambler and that Back then it was dark and secretive, the air he lost more than he won. But long before thick with smoke and carrying more than a the end it wasn’t about winning or losing whiff of danger. because he had lost control and was serving an addiction. Yet, for McConville, that was where he felt at home. He added: “By the time I finished gambling my debts were £100,000. I reckon I must have Oisín told the Club Newsletter: “There were gambled at least treble that amount if not three guys in the bookies. Two of them more in the years before. Every penny I ever were putting on 50p and there was one guy had, and there was a time in my life when I was putting on cash and that’s who I wanted to holding a half decent job and earning decent be. money, I was gambling it.” “By the time I was 17 or 18 I was gambling Of course, during this time McConville was every penny I had and if I wasn’t gambling winning Armagh, Ulster and All-Ireland club I was thinking about it every minute of the championship medals with Crossmaglen day. Rangers and was the key man kicking the frees. In 2002 he was a goal scoring hero in “I was a compulsive gambler. their breakthrough All-Ireland final triumph over Kerry. “For people who don’t suffer from it, it can be hard to understand, but I’m not being However, behind the façade he Oisín McConville, one of the greatest forwards of his generation, fought a private battle with a gambling addiction, but has turned his life around and is now determined to help others do the same dramatic when I say that putting a bet on was suffering. Football Hurling Club General He says: “When Armagh won the All-Ireland it was great. But through the celebrations afterwards I was thinking ‘I’d love to get away from here and put a bet on’. It’s a sad reflection on the hold that gambling had on me that I just wanted to get away. “I’d say for the last five years I was gambling I didn’t want to gamble, but it had a hold on me. “Football was great because I’d go to training and I’d have to leave the phone in the car for two hours to go out and play and that was a break away from it when I couldn’t bet and I was free from it. “Football saved my life. I had suicidal thoughts asking myself what was I at and what was I doing to my family. I’m not being dramatic, unless I went for help I don’t think I’d be around now.” The breaking point for Oisín was October 12, 2005. The day before he turned 30. He recalled: “On my last day of gambling I had got a business man to go guarantor on a huge bet of €10,000 on a horse and the horse was beaten. I went out to the car and found six or seven euro and went back in and had another bet because I felt I could get my money back. “Then I took out my phone and went down through the names in my phone looking for another ‘victim’ that I might be able to call to get money and then I realised I couldn’t because I had gone through family and friends already. “Over the next couple of days I broke down and things started to come out. I was in treatment a week later and was in treatment Oisín battles with Tomás Ó Sé in an epic battle in the great 2002 All-Ireland final triumph for the Orchard County for 13 weeks. Football Hurling Club General “I hadn’t cried in 16 years but I started to cry and to show emotions that I had locked up for so long.” From those dark depths Oisín has rebuilt his life. Today he has a successful career as an Addiction Counsellor working with Smarmore Castle, which is a private clinic based in Louth. He is on the road, very often the first point of contact for gamblers or more likely their friends and family who ring seeking help and seeking an intervention. He will always have a gambling addiction, but the odds are that nowadays he will win big at helping and indeed saving lives. He is passionate about ensuring that Irish society and the GAA is aware of the dangers of gambling – especially on young people. The nightmare scenario of a betting scandal in Gaelic games is not something our Association has faced and Oisín does not believe it is a threat – but he knows enough to know that we cannot afford to be complacent. He says: “There is a serious issue in society with gambling, there is a serious issue with it in sport and the GAA is not immune to that. “I’ve seen no hard evidence that there is a problem with it in the GAA on match results but we need to work hard at educating young people about the dangers of gambling.