Dooley wins Cricket Leinster Volunteer of the Year award
Ciaran Sharp presents the Volunteer of the Year award to Carlow Cricket's Jimmy Dooley
Jimmy Dooley is synonymous with Carlow Cricket. He may be best known for his work with Carlow Regional Youths Services and being a friendly face riding his bike around Carlow. However, his dedication to Carlow Cricket has been incredible since the club’s re-establishment in 2011.
Dooley was recognised for his hard work at the Cricket Leinster awards ceremony recently as he won the Michael Sharp Volunteer of the Year award. Dooley was the third winner of the award at the ceremony.
Passionate about cricket development, he places a special emphasis on promoting cricket for kids, and supporting the development of social cricket for the 'less youthful' members of his club and the surrounding midlands region.
Jimmy is also a strong advocate for inclusion with a particular focus on helping refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers as they become part of the club cricket community. His tireless work over many years has seen him oversee his club’s development team, deliver youth cricket camps in school holidays and provide 'taster' sessions at primary schools – all whilst also continuing to promote cricket within Carlow Regional Youth Services, and the wider community.
He was a big part of helping re-found Carlow Cricket Club so as to allow the Rohingyan youngsters a place to express themselves and play the sport they grew up loving. His main focus in recent years has been on developing the club’s youth section, as well as helping set up a Development Team to help bridge the gap between kids and adults cricket, as well as being a big part of the club’s social team which sees the older members of the club who are no longer interested in playing competitive league cricket play non competitively for fun.
A dedicated servant to Carlow Cricket, Jimmy’s work with Carlow Cricket club has for the past 14 years been remarkable. He’s incredibly knowledgeable and hard working, and not just that, he’s a friendly face and always has a smile on his face, always ready to help anybody involved with cricket. Jimmy has always tried to get to know every member of the club and is well known and loved by everyone inside and outside the club, and many in cricket circles across the country know his name. He sees cricket as the 'most important' unimportant thing in life; an opportunity for people to learn about themselves, and to learn valuable lessons from others, and is a thoroughly deserving winner of the award.
It’s safe to say that Carlow Cricket Club would not be where it is today without the incredible hard work done by Jimmy over the years.
Speaking to The Nationalist about the award, Jimmy explained that he knew nothing about it until the awards ceremony itself but that cricket has always been in his family and it’s special to him for that reason.
“We always try and go as a club to the awards night whether we’ve won anything or not. Our chairperson Alison was keen to go this year and was getting a group of people to go up. I agreed to go along and I didn’t suspect a thing until Sile Seoige started talking about Carlow Cricket Club and it’s volunteers. I then started to think ok this might be me. I was thinking of my uncle who would have played cricket in the 1930’s, Jack Keating from Montgomery Street. That’s where my interest in cricket was peaked, by Jack Keating when I was a kid. So I thought of him.”
Ever humble, Jimmy said it was more a recognition for Carlow Cricket Club than it was for him. “It’s more of a reward for the club and all the members of the club. That’s the way I look at it. Carlow Cricket Club is progressing slowly but surely, not because of one person but because of a range of people doing work. Straight away I saw it as an honour not just for me, but for the club. Straight away I started thinking, how do we use this to progress our club. More than half our committee is women, and that wouldn’t happen in too many sports clubs. This is just a recognition of all the hard work that goes on within the club, of all the structures that make our club sustainable. It’s about the connections we make and the stories we share. The leagues and cups are great, but it’s about the stories and connections and the things we share with each other and learn from each other.”
