THE inaugural Gaelic football Sunflower Cup tournament, in memory of Fionntán McGarvey, will take place at his former school Rathmore Grammar on Friday.
Just 18-years-old and a fine Gaelic footballer and soccer player, Fionntán died tragically in January 2022.
As well as pursuing sporting excellence with his school team, he was a key member of St Brigid’s GAC and local soccer club Aquinas FC.
As an organ donor, Fionntán gave the gift of life to two people in need of a kidney and after his death his family wished to raise the profile of organ donation and have raised funds for ‘We are Donors’ which is a charity which educates university and school students on organ and blood donation.
This has allowed a local branch to be established at Queen’s University known as the Fionntán branch.
The Year 11 competition, in partnership with ‘We Are Donors’ and Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service [NIBTS], will throw in at 10am today with 10 schools ready to compete for the new cup.
“Fionntan was obviously one of our past pupils who died suddenly,” said Rathmore teacher and former Antrim footballer Gearoid Adams.
“The school had been considering running a tournament to honour Fionntán’s name and his sporting excellence with Rathmore and his club St Brigid’s, and it is now happening.
“Fionntán was a fine footballer and I was lucky to have him in our team for a couple of years. This is the first year of the tournament and we hope to see go from strength to strength because it’s a tangible way of keeping Fionntán at the forefront of our minds.”
