Volunteer
Volunteerism is an action by people to give their time for free to help or partake in activities that help grow a very positive relationship between people and their local environment.
Different people have their own reasons and motives for doing it, but since time began humans have got a great sense of spirituality, social satisfaction by giving themselves free of charge with their time to help in anyway possible with other people. The club over the last 65 years has worked tirelessly to promote this type of volunteerism.
Our club is replicated all over Ireland and the world by this ongoing unselfishness that helps people and their communities. The GAA is one of the biggest organisations in the world for the promotion of volunteerism.
Every week, 52 weeks of the year there is someone in the club working for free for other people. Every weekend over a 100 people give hours of their time to our local community and our children with their volunteerism in the club.
It’s hard to pick out individual people who have been local heroes because there are so many over those 65 years that have given everything, but like all things it has to be done. It’s hard not to say there is anybody in our club who would not agree with the two people detailed below.
Joe Casserly is nearly 80 years old. If you look at one of the pictures in the 40′s you will see him at the right hand corner sitting down at a juvenile match. Fast forward to Parnell Park in 2009 and you see Joe standing in the stands supporting our championship winning team on the day.
Over 7 decades Joe has giving unselfish work to our club in every capacity right up to the present day. Through out the good times and bad ones, Joe has been always there as a rock for everybody in the club whether he liked you or not!
Through all his own personal tragedies he has given tirelessly to our club and the Cabra Community with his time. From being a player, manager, club chairman, club secretary, club treasurer, lines man, tea maker, fundraiser etc, over 7 decades he is what volunteerism is all about.
The same goes for this another man, Timmie Mulane. Timmie arrived in Cabra at the age of 15 in 1955 from a small village in Co Limerick called Ashford which is not far from Newcastle West. Timmy had an aunt living in Tramway Cottages in Connacht Street and went to school in Cabra Tec were he started to play Hurling and Football for Naomh Fionnbarra GAA.
Since then as a player, committee person or ordinary member he has worked voluntary with the club in the area. As a player he is one of a small number of members that has five championship medals. He has also trained and managed teams to win championships and has held nearly every position in the club.
For a man who settled in Santry and came from Limerick, he has given thousand of hours free to the club over the years.
These two examples of volunteerism might scare people off getting involved in our club because of the amount of commitment these people have given but as a famous Irish man said, “Every one has a part to play, no matter how big or how small the effort, no matter how long or how short.”
Volunteerism makes our community a better place to live in, so put a hour aside for your club and area, it’s a part of what we are!
