Uachtarán Jarlath Burns joins Carlow GAA in urging people to donate blood

JUST over 48 hours after handing over the Sam Maguire trophy to his fellow Armagh man Aidan Forker on the steps of the Hogan Stand in Croke Park, GAA President Jarlath Burns was in Carlow to help launch a health and well-being promotional video which encourages patrons of the GAA to donate blood.

The initiative is very close to the hearts of those within Carlow GAA after Naomh Eoin clubman Oisin Kelly lost his battle for to osteosarcoma (bone cancer) 12 months ago.

Through his battle against illness, Oisin bravely campaigned for GAA players around the country to donate blood and came up with the slogan:

“Every drop counts…I know”.

Oisin’s parents, Brendan and Sinead, and brother and sister, Cian and Sadhbh, were present as the GAA President, who was in attendance along with Ard Stiúrthóir Tom Ryan, explained why he was so keen to lend his support to the project.

“It is very, rare for the Ard Stiúrthóir and the Uachtarán to attend an event together but the reason why I wanted to be here tonight, as well being a regular blood donor myself, is that I have one story in particular that I wanted to mention.

“About ten years ago a student of mine in my school in Bessbrook called Ryan Cinnamond took an aneurism and as a result ended up having the biggest blood transfusion in the history of the Northern Ireland state. He ended up having to get both legs amputated and our students really took that to heart. Thankfully, he survived and his story is one of incredible resilience.

“The students in our school decided they wanted to do something very positive to demonstrate that Ryan was saved because of blood transfusions. They decided that every year in November that they would invite the blood transfusion service in the north to come to out school and there is a full day of donating blood, and it is one of the biggest blood donating sessions that they have. It’s something that we are very proud of and something that has really focused our minds on the importance of giving blood.

“I know that every that about every month I’ll get a text message from the blood transfusion services saying they are in somewhere like Bessbrook and we need you to come down and donate blood. You can think of a million reasons not to go but there is always the one reason to go, you know that you can save three lives for every blood transfusion.

“For Brendan, Sinead, Sadhbh and Cian, you are leaving through Oisin a tremendously positive legacy. That’s something that we in the GAA do so well and that we are so proud of.

“This video is about a simple message, just two simple words – Give Blood. If you can give blood in memory of Oisin that’s an even biggest reason to give blood. In his short life, he changed so many lives because he decided in the last year of his life that he was going to spend that time campaigning to make sure that as many people as possible would give blood.

“I welcome the number of people from the Irish Blood Transfusion Services who are here this evening because the work that you do saves lives every single day and it is such an important thing.

“In the GAA, we had our hurling last week and the football final in the weekend just gone but this is more important, more impactful because my GAA is rooted in the community of where we are from and the GAA exists to do good in communities, to do good things and to use the influence of that we have in as good a way as possible,” said Burns.

Brendan Kelly, father of Oisin, spoke to encourage as many people as possible to donate blood.

“I want to thank all those people who have do so much work to get us to this point but the acid test for us will be, have we increased donations? Have we increased supply?

“One in four of us will need a donation at some point and we are going to need it when we are at our most vulnerable. 67% of the demand for blood is for cancer and cancer affects one in every two families.

“Every blood donation saves three lives.

“Ireland is behind internationally when it comes to blood donation which is surprising as we are very generous as nation so we need to get ourselves up there.

“Donating is so easy. We produce blood like a cow produces milk, it’s natural, it’s normal and it’s not as if we have to make any decisions about trade off or think between the positives and negatives. It’s very, very simple but the impact of that is huge,” he said.

Carlow GAA chairman Jim Bolger said his committee are proud to support this project.

“We in Carlow GAA are delighted to link up with the IBTS and the Kelly family for the initiative which honours Oisin and his legacy. It’s great to have Jarlath and Tom here today, the two most high ranking people in the GAA. We have the chair of our national committee, chair of the Leinster committee and our one and only Tommy Murphy who has been a driving force for health and well being in our county. I suppose the fact that Oisin is from his own club inspired him even more to come on board with this and drive it on.

When we look at the association and the work that is done voluntarily, they work selflessly in so many different areas to our sports and sports administration.

Donating blood is one of the best things we can do from a selfless prospective because we know how important that is, that bank of blood saves lives and I don’t know if there is anything more worthwhile that any of us can do so easily.

We will do our best to spread the word throughout the GAA. While we are engrained in every parish in the country, and beyond, this will extend to the wide community as well because who know the time or the hour when people will need blood,” said Bolger.

Carlow GAA Head of Operations also spoke.

“It’s at times of tragedy that we see the true worth of our organisation in the GAA. How the support mechanisms that in are place, it’s community at it’s best. When we see how people put the shoulder to the wheel when times are devastating of families in the community it makes it all worthwhile and makes us all very proud to be a part of this great organisation.

Myself and Brendan were talking earlier today about people donating blood. Sometimes it goes over your head about how important it is. My own dad was a blood donor all his life and we always said ‘well done dad’ gave him a clap on the back and moved on but when you really stop and think of what it means…this last year has really opened my eyes about what it means to be the one receiving that blood,” he said.

McConnon also praised Éire Óg and Carlow full back Mark Furey, who produced the video, and John Michael Nolan, Michelle Nolan, Edel Hayden and Dylan Doyle, who starred in it.

“Mark produced this video for us, as well a number of other videos for Carlow GAA, and he’s a special guy. His ideas and thoughts were just fantastic when it came the making of this video. Sometimes you worry when you are asking people to step outside their comfort zone but all the people on the video embraced what they were doing and in the end came up with fantastic video with a very important message.”