A wonderful success

Now that the dust has settled after the fantastic Feile Peil na nÓg Liatroma event that finished on Sunday evening its time to reflect on the effort by many to host such a spectacle.

The event captured the heart and imagination of may people in the support counties Roscommon, Sligo and the main host county Leitrim as it did with many of the visiting teams who traveled near and far to the picturesque North west.

It was a huge undertaking and the subsequent praise heaped upon the various local committees and the main event committee is justified. While the counties Leitrim, Roscommon and Sligo may jostle on the field while in competition the unity if the three while under the Feile flag was very evident over the last number of months and in particular last weekend.

This event was a logistical nightmare with 170 plus teams participating in 11 competitions divided between boys and girls teams with all the visiting teams hosted in the local communities. An extra competition, Division 7 boys, was introduced for this event and the winners received a cup donated in memory of Niall Higgins, Drumshanbo.

The parade alone would have been enough of an event for any committee to organise and it went extremely smoothly considering over 5,000 team members were asked to assemble in an organised fashion on the field in Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada. Thankfully a large car park exists to handle the numbers of buses and coaches required to transport everyone. The Gardai, local stewards and local businesses must come in for praise for organising the parking and traffic arrangements on a very busy national route.

Throughout the weekend the results came flooding in to the results centre from the 41 event centres located throughout Leitrim, Roscommon and Sligo. By Saturday afternoon almost 236 games were played and it was down to the 22 semi-finals for the evening. Saturday night the results were processed and we had 22 teams to play in the 11 finals on Sunday. The finals started at 9am and a great start for Leitrim with our first ever Feile winners- Drumreilly/ Aughawillan. The rest of the day saw thousands watch the remaining finals, including the skills final, all of which were recorded by Setanta Sports. Our new stand was never without a calling supporter or on occasion a tearful eye.

The results centre was a picture of calmness while the results website was anything but quiet as on Friday alone over 5,000 pages of results were served. Saturday was extremely busy as the administrative team verified and posted the results while 13,200 pages were demanded throughout the day. Sundays finals saw in excess of 7,000 requests for results and even on Monday as everyone recovered 5,400 pages were reviewed. A big thank you to the 41 coordinators for speedily relaying the results back to the centre and to the team there who quickly received, verified and uploaded each result into the software that managed 55 tables which were required to keep track of proceedings.

The curtains were drawn on a wonderful event on Sunday evening as the mix of elated winners, happy runners-up and supporters made their way home. Finally the Feile Committee made up of a very hard working group of people could take a collective sigh of relief. These individuals lead by Chairman Stephen Flynn and Secretary Patricia Bohan should be extremely proud of their efforts.

Thanks also is due to the National Feile Committee who were at hand throughout the weekend and the best of luck to the Cavan representatives who received the Feile flag on Sunday evening and who have 12 months to prepare for Feile Peil na nÓg 2008. To all the parents and members of local committees throughout Leitrim, Sligo and Roscommon please take a bow as you fed, entertained and housed the visiting teams. Each of you did your selves proud in the presentation and smooth running of your own local events. While Setanta Sports recorded the field action it was down to the 2 men James Molloy and Willie Donnellan to catch all of the action on camera and their efforts are on display via the Photo Gallery on this website.

To all concerned Feile Peil na nÓg Liatroma was a wonderful event and will stay in the memory of many for a long time.

 

 

05-Jul-07 by Brendan Doyle – PRO