Aidan O’Donoghue (right) – third place in his master category at the National Indoor Combined Events.

Mullingar Harriers look to future at annual general meeting

Published: Thu 26 Jan 2023, 12:48 PM

The Annual General Meeting of Mullingar Harriers was held last Friday evening in the Greville Arms Hotel, Mullingar. Given the current membership, there should have been more there, but it was still well attended, which shows the interest among members on how the Club is managed and organised on their behalf.

Chairperson, Margaret Daly opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and introduced the Secretary’s report by Colm Walsh, the Treasurer’s report by Joanna Tyrrell and Competition report by Greg Duggan. These were followed by Margaret’s own Chairperson’s address.

Like every club in Ireland, membership increased dramatically last year and interest in joining again this year is very strong, so the foundations in Mullingar Harriers are good. However, the club continues to face challenges in managing the increase in membership, due in no small measure to the completion of the all-weather track, which is proving a fabulous asset to the club, and a renewed call was made for more help for coaches, particularly with the younger underage members that train at the 6pm sessions.

There was excellent uptake on coach education and training towards the end of last year, and the Juvenile Training Officer will be following up with all the newly trained people on how best to use their training in practice to assist the current experienced coaches. An effort will also be made to identify those that might wish to coach field events.

While Covid hasn’t gone away, thankfully, the worst of the Covid pandemic seems to be behind us and club activities and competitions returned in 2022 and there was a full indoor, outdoor and cross country seasons, and there were plenty of road races too, both Championship and casual.

On the international front, two stand-out highlights were Aisling Lane, Andrew Glennon and Diarmuid Fagan competing at the European U18 T&F in Jerusalem in July and Jamie Battle and Cormac Dalton competing at the European Cross County in Turin in December, where Jamie took home a bronze medal with the Irish U23 team.

Domestically, top highlights were the string of cross country team successes for the Mullingar senior men, winning team medals at Leinster Novice, National Novice and Leinster Intermediate and placing third club at the National Senior cross country, showing that cross country success for Mullingar isn’t confined to our juvenile section.

In recognition of his tremendous contribution to the club from a very young age right up to senior international level, it was unanimously agreed to bestow the honour of Life Vice-President on Mark Christie. Mark was always a dedicated and focussed athlete, fiercely loyal to Mullingar Harriers, and is a very worthy recipient of this honour.

The following were elected as officers and committee members for the coming year: Sean McMullin (President), Breda McDonnell (Vice-President), Margaret Daly (Chair), Catríona Duffy (Vice-Chair), Joanna Tyrrell (Treasurer), Greg Duggan (Secretary, and will take on the roles of PRO coordinator, Registrar and competition entries), JP O’Brien (Assistant Secretary, Philip Burke (Juvenile Training Officer), Tom McGrath (Minute Secretary), Pauline Quinn, Margaret Daly and Greg Duggan (Child Officers), Cormac Finnerty, Pat Muldoon Senior, Vera McCool and John Shaw (Trustees).

The officers and trustees are automatically on the new committee, as are Life Vice-presidents Seamus Gibney, Cormac Finnerty, Martin Fagan, Bobbie Begley, John Mulvihill, Christy Creagh and Mark Christie, and will be joined by James Carton, Declan Costello, Amanda Dalton, Paul Ginnell, Sean Liston, Joe Ryan, Alan Sherwin, Tom Wallace and Sinead Whitelaw who were elected to the committee, and by Club Captains Aine O’Reilly and Ian McCormack who were also elected.

Several important issues were discussed and debated with plenty of lively contributions from those in attendance. Concluding the meeting, Margaret Daly thanked all present for their attendance and input, closed a successful AGM and invited everyone to stay for the light refreshments that were served after the meeting, which gave everyone a nice chance to stay and chat for a while.

Ballyroan 10 Mile

The Ballyroan 10 mile, organised by Ballyroan, Abbeyleix and District AC in Co. Laois, returned to the race calendar last Sunday morning and among the entries was Tommy Byrne, the sole representative from Mullingar Harriers.

The weather was ideal for running, dry and little or no breeze. The two lap course took a scenic meandering route, starting in Ballyroan before heading towards Abbeyleix and finishing back in Ballyroan again where the runners were greeted with music and commentary to give them the final push across the line. Tommy was very happy to finish well up in 66 minutes 29 seconds.