Healthy Clubs in Tyrone

Tyrone clubs Greencastle St Patrick’s and Omagh St Enda’s have been successful in their applications to participate in Phase 2 of the Healthy Club Project.
Both have met the requirements of the initiative in terms of the development of meaningful, mutually beneficial, partnerships with additional private and community health-orientated entities.
Greencastle’s Health and Wellbeing Officer Darryl McCullagh said the club is looking forward to maximising the benefits of the project to its members and the wider community.
“I’m delighted An Caisleán Glas Naomh Padraig have been successful in its application to participate in the GAA national healthy clubs programme,” he said.
“We have been putting in place small programmes to date but we really look forward to getting involved and seeing the impact on our club and community.
Tracy Monaghan, Health and Wellbeing Officer with Omagh St Enda’s, said: “My motivation for applying for Phase 2 of the Healthy Club Project was the recognition that so much can be done in the club space for the many different members in areas of physical and emotional wellbeing.
“The Healthy Clubs Project will enable us to provide a well thought-out plan to do just that with the best resources and proven methods seen from evaluation of Phase 1.”
Phase 1 of the Healthy Club Project (HCP) concluded with the launch by An Uachtarán CLG and the Minister for Health Leo Varadkar in November 2015 of the independent evaluation report conducted by a team from Waterford IT’s Centre for Health Behaviour Research.
The report concluded that the Healthy Club model has the potential to empower GAA clubs to become a significant positive influence on the health of their members and their communities, beyond the excellent work that they inherently do in this space.
A total of 95 clubs applied to participate with Greencastle and Omagh being two of the 45 who were successful to participate in Phase 2 of the HCP, which will run for 18 months. The range of activities recorded in their expressions of interest was remarkable.
Many GAA clubs across the country are driving the health of their communities in ways that remain largely hidden and unrecognised; ways that go far beyond the scope of a traditional sporting organisation. It is one aspiration of the Healthy Club project that Phase 2 will help to shine a greater light on this work and allow for the appropriate recognition for such efforts.
Funding the resources necessary to grow the project to this size, including the recruitment of a national coordinator, would not have been possible without the CRS investment made by Irish Life (€1m from 2015-17 initially).
Phase 2 commenced with an orientation day for all participating clubs in Croke Park. This coincided perfectly with the national roll-out of training for the new position of Club Health & Wellbeing officer.
This will help to ready all units interested in becoming Healthy Clubs for Phase 3, when it is hoped to make the project available nationwide. The eventual aim is that the Healthy Clubs quality mark will become an instantly recognisable emblem signifying that each GAA club under its banner is a driver of their members’ and their community’s health: Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds, Healthy Clubs. Tyrone will have at least two clubs work towards this with the hope that many more will follow.