Couple scoop Personality Award

THEY may not have been born in it, but Damien and Geraldine Sheridan certainly showed that their hearts are in the Royal County when they received the Meath Personality of the Year Award on Saturday night last in Navan.

As a finale to his acceptance speech, Damien, complete with accordion, led the crowd at the Royal Meath Association's gala dinner in a rendition of 'Beautiful Meath'.

The Sheridans were honoured for their work with the GAA in Meath, and their involvement in the local community.

Fr Seamus Cassidy, RMA chaplain, said it was fitting that the Association was honouring somebody involved in youth and voluntary work, in an era when modern lifestyles meant that few people had time for such work, and issues such as drug abuse was prevalent amongst certain sections of a younger generation who had no guidance.

Geraldine Sheridan paid tribute to both her parents and Damien's parents, saying they had given them a great start in life. And they hoped that they could do the same for their own family.

"But this award is not just for the people in front of me - it's for our friends in Seneschalstown, and the people of Meath," she said.

"When we moved to Seneschalstown, the welcome we got was extraordinary, and it was a community that pulled together, in the bad times and the good times."

Damien Sheridan said they were accepting the award on behalf of the huge number of people they had come to know in the various communities they had lived.

He said the old clichés were true: "No man is an island - everybody needs somebody to lean on."

He drew on the family's experience in Omagh a decade ago when they were just 25 yards away from the bomb when it exploded.

"We were fortunate enough to have a big enough of a van to be able to bring people to the hospital. No one was asking what religion anybody was - everybody just worked together to get through it.

"When they returned home that evening and watched the events on television, it was most surreal. They felt like they had leaped into the television and out of it.

"But lifelong friendships were made from that experience," he said.

He made an emotional appeal to the public representatives present to expedite the court case for the Navan bus crash court case.

"Every house and every family in our community was affected in some way by that tragedy," he said. "It is only like it was three months ago, and families need closure as much as possible, as quickly as possible."

The Seneschalstown side took the 2007 Meath Senior Football Championship title, trained by Damien, Ian Maguire and the late Tommy McDonnell. It was an achievement which brought great joy to the parish.

"Everyone worked for the common good, and any differences anyone might have had were put aside."

Damien Sheridan said that at this year's dinner dance, there was no player of the year award.

"Because it was all about a team effort. We didn't want to single out any one individual player. Every player should have felt as important as everyone else and, please God, they were."

And the team that defeated them in a replay in the Leinster Club Championship, St Vincent's of Dublin, is now in the All-Ireland club final on St Patrick's Day.

"To know we lost that game by one kick of the ball makes you sick in one sense and proud in another," Damien said.

Lusk native Damien Sheridan grew up in Maghera, Co Cavan, before the family moved to Navan when he was 20. He played underage football with Cavan sides Lurgan and Ramor, moving onto the county under-16s. Later, with six members of his family, he formed the band, the Supertones.

With Navan O'Mahonys, he won a number of senior championship medals and hoisted the Keegan Cup in 1985 and, for a while, filled the Number 3 jersey on the Meath senior team until Mick Lyons came along.

With times bad economically in the 1980s, he decided to emigrate to Birmingham where he set up a successful building company with his brother, Eamonn. Here, he joined the John Mitchell's GAA Club, where Birmingham native Geraldine, a nurse, was very active.

She had been a founding member of Warwickshire GAA County Board, of which she was chairperson for six years, and was president of the Provincial Council of Great Britain.

On arriving back to Ireland in 1996, both became involved with O'Mahonys again, with Damien winning another senior medal in 1997. On their move to Yellow Furze, they transferred to Seneschalstown, where they became involved in both the ladies and men's GAA clubs, leading them to various successes, while Geraldine led Meath under-age ladies' teams to All-Ireland successes, and brought the county minor and senior teams to Leinster and National League finals respectively.

Having initially coached the local ladies' senior team, Damien switched to the men's club and was involved in their Feis Cup success of 2004 as manager, before bringing them to Keegan Cup success last year, a team that included their three sons, Damien, Joe and Brian.

Guests at Saturday night's function in the Ardboyne Hotel were welcomed by Tom Lynam, the president of the Royal Meath Association, and included the Bishop of Meath, Most Rev Dr Michael Smith, Mr and Mrs Bernadette and Noel Dempsey TD, the Mayor of Navan, Colr Christy Reilly and Mrs Ann Reilly, Colr Peter Higgins, vice-chair, Meath County Council, and Marie Higgins, Very Rev Peter Farrelly, PP, Beauparc.

The attendance also included representatives of Meath County GAA Board, including chairman Barney Allen, and hurling chairman TJ Reilly, as well as Deputy Thomas Byrne and his wife Ann.

Mr and Mrs Sheridan were presented with the Tara Mines Perpetual Trophy as Meath Personalities of the Year 2007.