Denis O'Riordan Cup presented to Cork County Board

On Thursday night at Valley Rovers’ Brinny grounds, the family of Denis O’Riordan presented a trophy in his name to Cork County Board.

The trophy will be contested for the first time tomorrow night as Avondhu and Imokilly clash in Páirc Uí Rinn for a place in the quarter-finals of the Co-op SuperStores Cork Premier SHC and it will be awarded to the winners of that fixture going forward.

Denis, who died in March of this year, was a blow-in in GAA terms: a native of the Gearagh near Macroom, he moved to Innishannon with his family at the age of 11 when their land had to be flooded as part of the construction of the ESB generating station in Inniscarra.

His first memory of a Valley Rovers match was attending a junior game against Ballinhassig at Farm Lane in Kinsale in 1957 and from there he became embedded in the fabric of the club.

Denis’s fellow county board delegate and great friend Donal McCarthy remembers somebody who was never found wanting in willing to serve.

“He was club treasurer for 14 years - a safe pair of hands, no better man!” he laughs.

“When the lotto started 22 years ago, he was one of the founding members. He was the head and tail of it really, I used to call him Mr Lotto!

“He was in charge of organising people on matchdays, something he always did well, and he was vice-president of the club at the time of his passing.

“He was the club delegate to the south-east board for 12 years and became treasurer there too. Then, when the club won the county junior in 1988, he became the county board delegate and served for 32 years. He was on the executive for 16 of those years and he became an events organiser for board activities too.” Such a level of involvement is hard to replace, but of course he was first and foremost a family man.

“He’s a huge loss to the GAA, but as big a loss as he was, he was a much bigger loss to Mary and his family,” Donal says.

“We travelled to county board meetings together down along the years and I was lucky to consider him a friend.” On his passing, another Valley Rovers blow-in, Paudie Palmer, noted in his Echo column that Denis’s favourite colour certainly wasn’t grey, things were generally black or white. That was illustrated by the man himself in an interview on the club website, where he recounted an unsuccessful attempt to save Gaelic football.

“I am glad to have lived in that era to see real football played,” he said, “I find it hard to watch what is on offer at the moment.

“I was thinking for a number of years what rule change would improve it, I felt there was no point in talking to the club of Cork County Board on it. I had to speak to the top.

“At a function in April 2019, the then-President [John Horan] was there. I watched for my chance and approached him and asked could I have a word. He said go on.

“I said, ‘Gaelic football is dying in front of our eyes and some would say it’s dead.’ He said he couldn’t agree, I was losing at this stage but I drove on anyway – I said one rule change would improve it, no back-passing in a team’s own half. He said that it couldn’t be policed by refs.

“I said why not, as in rugby if a player throws a ball forward, the ref whistles immediately. I also said that we have seen players getting man of the match without ever kicking a ball and that can’t be right in a game called football.

“He just dismissed me as if I wasn’t there. A lot of people reading this would say he was right but at least I got a bit of satisfaction in telling him.” It was a story that summed up the thankless lot of a GAA administrator – seeking to make positive change and often stymied in that desire but never giving up the good fight.

As long as hurling and football are played in Innishannon, his name will be remembered and now it is etched in silver too.