‘Sean has taken the role of PRO to a whole new level. The content in the build-up and during games is of the highest quality and appreciated during these times now more than ever.
Sean approached me at an Antrim game and said he'd like to do something for deterMND, but wasn't sure what.
After a few phone calls the idea for ‘Run for Anto’ was born. It's a testament to Sean that it was hugely successful.
He covered everything from the launch, to logos, local sponsorship, online registration and more.
The event raised over 12k for MND research, however, the awareness raised is immeasurable.
If Sean knows I'm going to an Antrim game I turn up and he has parking and seating organised for me.
As my wife always says to me when I tell her I've been talking to Sean, 'He is such a good person’.’ – Anto Finnegan December 3 2020
WHEN I asked Anto Finnegan if he wanted to pen a few lines about Antrim PRO Sean Kelly who steps down from his role next week after five years of service, he sent me the above message.
When I read it I was tempted to go back to Anto and ask him to write the rest of this week’s column.
In just 148 words, the former Antrim defender summed up the St Malachy’s, Belfast clubman perfectly.
Why, you may ask, have I decided to dedicate an entire column to a GAA PRO?
Aren’t they supposed to be an awkward breed for journalists to deal with? Aren’t press officers the ones who give off to journalists about some negative article in the newspaper?
Of course, if you know the terrain there is no reason why journalists and press officers can’t get along. Since he assumed the PRO reins five years ago, we’ve always got on well – to the point where we became good friends.
He’s probably the only Antrim PRO I struck up a friendship with in 21 years. I didn’t get on with the others.
I don’t blame them. It wasn’t their fault. They were all victims of the circumstances of the day. It’s fair to say tension between Antrim GAA and The Irish News dates back longer than my career in the newspaper.
A lot of the time, Antrim GAA featured in the newspaper and other media outlets for the wrong reasons. Players complained about no training gear, poor facilities, late expenses, the Woodlands gates being padlocked and the footballers couldn’t train.
One time an Antrim player complained about the post-training food for the squad was sausage rolls and pizza.
Pffft!
I didn’t see what the problem was.
At the risk of patronising county officers of the past, they were all ceaseless volunteers who made the best of bad situations in dark times.
At least they put their hand up when others kept theirs in their pockets and sniped from the side-lines.
What changed in Antrim was a new breed of county officer emerged; GAA figures from the business community that knew business principles needed to be applied to raise the overall standards in the county.
Sean Kelly arrived under the umbrella 'Saffron Vision'. In short, Antrim GAA upped its game quite considerably.
And, as a consequence, the bad news stories disappeared like the summer rain. In fairness, there weren’t many fires for the new PRO to put out.
Sean, who works as a finance manager in Edwards & Co Solicitors in Belfast, could concentrate on building good relations with the media while at the same time revolutionising the county’s social media platforms.
He was the first PRO in the country to post videos of the county teams training in pre-season. He was an innovator from the start. Through the use of Twitter and Facebook he rebranded Antrim GAA.
Good news stories came flooding out of the county. Twitter and Facebook followers soared from a modest 2,000 to over 20,000.
Anybody who’s been around the Antrim scene will have watched Sean at his work around every club pitch in the county.
Score updates. Videos. Breaking news. Profiling clubs, players, mentors, mascots and supporters. What he achieved in five years was a truly gargantuan feat.
But it wasn’t just the updates and posted videos from Aughrim, Loughgiel, Glenavy, Tullamore, Mullingar and Tralee.
It was the charitable efforts that defined him. Forever joined at the hip by his adorable daughter Meabh, Sean did things way beyond the parameters of a county PRO.
He organised trolley dashes, walks, the ‘Run for Anto’, lockdown music nights. He’s raised thousands of pounds for charity.
He would politely badger me for a bit of space in the sports pages for his latest charitable venture. I often wondered why he embarked on all of this good work.
Why not set up a direct debit or throw some loose change into a charity bucket? Why go to all that trouble?
In life, I guess you sometimes encounter people with amazing human decency which reminds you about the lives of others and those less fortunate, who may have fallen on hard times or suffered ill-health who could all do with some assistance – moral, financial or otherwise.
Sean’s work also reminds you that life can be better when it doesn’t revolve around just you, and that there is so much more to learn from and be inspired by through shared experiences and being part of something bigger than oneself.
In 2011, Sean’s mother died suddenly. What made the heartbreak bearable was the support his family received from St Malachy’s GAC and the wider GAA family.
If you ask him why he organised the annual trolley dashes for St Vincent de Paul or the walk around Shaw’s Bridge for Bowel Cancer UK or the lockdown music nights for the Hospice – courtesy of Clan Mac Corraidh – or the ‘Run for Anto’ in Falls Park, he’ll say the GAA helped him in his hour of need – and now he’s returning the favour.
The movers and shakers of the GAA wax lyrical about how its volunteers are the bedrock upon which the association is built.
Well, they should celebrate and reward some of the volunteers of the pandemic.
If 2020 did anything, it stripped everything to its core and we saw the absolute rawness of what GAA volunteerism actually looks like.
Sean Kelly’s last assignment as Antrim PRO is next week’s Joe McDonagh final at Croke Park.
It would be fitting if the hurlers emerge victorious - so they can tip their hat to one of the county's most dedicated servants.
Anto’s wife, Alison, is a sound judge of character.
