From The Avondhu 4th June 2020
White’s Cross GAA suffered a great loss when on Tuesday night last, the 26th of May, our club president Dermot Whooley passed away. Dermot was a great character who loved a bit of devilment and time spent in his company at a match or other social event was time well spent. On Thursday morning after his funeral mass, a large crowd gathered at our club grounds. While waiting for Dermot to pass, we shared some of our interactions with Dermot over the years. Each story was usually followed with laughter!
Since taking up the communications officer role in the club two and a half years ago, I started a ‘project’ (in the loosest sense of the word) of sorts to collect and then share some information on the club’s past. Dermot, given his experience and service to the club, was naturally the first port of call. Naturally, he was most obliging but also very enthusiastic. For those that read the weekly articles here on the Avondhu or follow our Facebook page, they will have seen posts/articles/photos on various matches and stories from the past. Much of the information gathered or the ideas for the posts came from Dermot’s stories/memorabilia. Today, it is appropriate to, in some way, pay tribute to Dermot’s contribution by sharing some of his personal memories of the sport, community and his beloved White’s Cross GAA.
Dermot has spent most of his life at the family farm in Crush, Upper Glanmire. He was born (mid 40s) at a time prior to White’s Cross GAA being founded. His first contact with the club came shortly after its formation in the late 50s. Dinny Noonan (RIP) was one of the young stars of the newly formed club and also happened to come to work turning the hay on the Whooley farm; dressed appropriately in his White’s Cross socks! This obviously left an impression of sorts on a young Dermot! However, he was unable to join immediately as we did not cater for juvenile players at that time. Therefore, he played, along with his brothers, throughout his youth with Watergrasshill. When Watergrasshill won their first junior hurling championship in 1974, his brother Anthony was a key member of their squad. By that stage, however, Dermot was a White’s Cross player. He remembered joining a squad with some very good hurlers and with some other characters being described, whilst laughing heartily, as “half mad lad”. Obviously, given that he stayed, he must have fitted in there somewhere! His association with Watergrasshill was not quite finished though. A league game in the very early 70s between the Cross and the Hill was a typical, for the era, full-blooded encounter both metaphorically and , unfortunately for Dermot, literally. His old friends left their mark on him and he sustained a serious leg injury which cut short his hurling career at that point. There was no hard-feelings held toward Watergrasshill, however! In fact, whilst raising money years later to purchase our club grounds, he happily offered the people of the Hill the chance to win prizes in our club draw. Obviously they had to buy a ticket first!
The mid 70s saw Dermot move away from Crush as, for approximately five years, he farmed land near Saleen in Midleton. Missing sporting action but not wanting to risk serious injury, Dermot took the decision to play rugby! Perhaps, it was no surprise that injury also curtailed his involvement in that sport! Anyway, Midleton was never ‘home’ and so it was back to Crush where he reignited his involvement in our club and community.
There were two main projects that were crucial to the club survival in the early 1980s; the purchase of club grounds and restructuring of our underage activity. Dermot had a big role in both of these. As alluded to above, and has often been mentioned, Dermot Whooley was able to sell a ticket! When purchasing club grounds, you need funds and you need grafters and ticket sellers. Dermot played a huge role here. And in any recounting of this period, his role will be acknowledged. However, when I spoke to him about this time, he did want to stress the role of other committee members such as Andrew and John Hickey (RIP), Stephen Crowley and Joe O’Callaghan (RIP) who made huge personal sacrifices to secure the club’s future.
The early 80s saw, due to a lack of interest of from the adult clubs and lack of manpower, our previous version of St Colmcilles juvenile club disbanded. From 83/84 onwards our underage sides went solo for a while. Dermot was heavily involved in this aspect also, organising street leagues in the community field and carting young lads around the county for matches. It is fair to say that car space was fully utilised on these away days. Success was almost instant and he recalled fondly his involvement in the championship victory for the under 12s in 1984. That was a very strong White’s Cross side. He singled out Timmy Allen (Buck Leary’s Cross) on that team as one of the real stars but this praise came with a caveat naturally; as the same players was also responsible for destroying his one and only video of the game!
Dermot became secretary of the club in 1988. This period (mid to late 1980s) was bleak for the club and reflected the prevailing mood socially and economically. He recalls togging out for games just to ‘keep it going’ so to speak. That said, there was some pride in having to play some of these games with his son James even if the results might not as always have been great. As a long term member of the Upper Glanmire community association, Dermot understood that the GAA is about community and family and not just results. Periods where success is scarce will be followed, at some stage, by more successful periods. And so it was, during his tenure as secretary, that one of the most successful periods in the club history unfolded. 1990 – to 1994 saw the club graduate from being junior B in both codes to a successful junior A side winning trophies in hurling and football. This was replicated further down the club with minor and underage success.
Dermot stepped down as secretary in 1993 but continued to be a committee member ever since. He has held several roles such as board delegate and our county board draw co-ordinator. He was also a referee for over a decade being one of the very few referees that have been associated with the club in our history. He assumed the club president’s role in 2005 after the sudden death of then president John Hickey (RIP). His own death came as a shock to all of us too. He will be a massive loss to the club. However, it is to Judith (his wife), his children James, Ted, Kay, Julianne, Frances, Lillian, his sons and daughters in law, his grandchildren and extended family that will bear the greatest loss. To them we offer our deepest sympathies but also the assurance that his memory will live on. Testimony to this and his popularity was the large crowd that gave Dermot a dignified guard of honour as he called up to the pitch for one last time before going to his final resting place. There he now rests peacefully. However, we have no doubt our friend will look down on us for many a year to come. Diarmuid Ó h-Uallaigh, Uachtarán Crosaire an Fhaoitigh CLCG 2005-2020 – ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal