Donegal GAA Centre hit by storm damage chairperson Mary Coughlan explains

Mary Coughlan has explained that the Donegal GAA Centre suffered damage as Storm Éowyn hit the north west at the weekend. 

The Donegal GAA chairperson says it was a testing number of days as the county’s senior footballers’ clash with Kerry in Killarney on Saturday was postponed. 

Confirmation of that rearranged contest, for the weekend of February 8/9, will arrive later this afternoon from Croke Park. 

“We have a lot of damage in Convoy,” Coughlan told DonegalLive. “Ball stops and goalposts have come down, some of that has fallen in on top of fences. 

“Thanks to ATU Donegal, they’ve been able to facilitate with training for certain groups to take the pressure off. 

“So there was a huge bit of rearranging to do on that as well so no one missed a beat”. 

Meanwhile, Coughlan says that Croke Park’s decision to pull Donegal’s opening NFL encounter in the Kingdom was the ‘common sense’ one. 

“The issue was that some people hadn’t accepted that Donegal was later in the storm and then, as a consequence, we’d no telecoms, no internet and no way of communicating. 

“We finally were able to get in contact with Croke Park and make them aware of the serious communications issues we were experiencing in Donegal. 

“Also there was another weather front coming in and that hit early Saturday morning. It was treacherous in many parts of the county. 

“And of course the senior football squad were only scheduled to depart on Saturday so it was very much a common sense decision.”

The Donegal hurlers, Donegal ladies and Naomh Padraig all played outside the county at the weekend.

However, Coughlan explains that Mickey McCann and James Daly’s teams both departed on the Friday while Daniel McCauley’s side pulled out of Muff on Thursday night. 

“We did a lot of rearranging for the hurlers in terms of logistics and eating on the way down. But it was a much easier process doing that work as the Donegal hurling squad is gathered from a certain cluster of areas. 

“The footballers, geographically, that was a much more laborious process as they really are scattered throughout the four corners of the county”. 

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Many Donegal supporters had already left for Kerry on Friday and some of those that had intended to depart on Saturday have since taken to social media with reports that some accommodation establishments in Killarney had still charged for what were, in the end, empty rooms.  

“It’s very unfortunate and we really did our best to get in touch as many people as possible,” Coughlan added. 

“We got supporters buses stopped and we got it out in the radio and social media channels as quickly as we could”.