LETTERS: 'I am ashamed as a Tipp supporter,' huge anger over how Colm Bonnar was treated

COLM BONNAR SACKED
‘Spin and PR has clouded our capacity to be grateful, kind’

Dear Editor
I am a Tipp supporter since the time it was possible to cycle miles to Munster Finals and leave an unlocked bicycle on the street.
I am acutely aware that over the past two to three years sport gave us a great uplift even if curtailed, rugby, racing, soccer and much more. The GAA, a wonderful example of real community involvement, gave us something to celebrate. Our Tipp minor hurlers under the stewardship of James Woodlock was the icing on the cake for us Tipp people this year.
Reading the publicity around how Colm Bonnar was “relieved from his duties” was an embarrassment and made me wonder if spin and PR has clouded our capacity to be grateful, kind and more importantly to be human. I wish him happy days into the future.
Yours sincerely,
ALICE LEAHY
Director of Services
Alice Leahy Trust
Former Tipperary Person of the Year and Fethard native living in Dublin

‘IT CAME TO MY ATTENTION’
‘Dearth of sports camps in Thurles for children with additional needs’

Dear Sirs,

My name is Nathalie O’Callaghan, a special needs assistant in a local primary school.
It came to my attention last year that Thurles had no summer camp for children with additional needs.
To this end, I began my campaign to contact local and national GAA clubs and soccer clubs. To make a long story short of emails and telephone conversations, Moycarkey-Borris GAA club ran with an Easter camp this year and a Summer camp under the able and enthusiastic stewardship of Dr Laurenz Egan and his team.
Needless to say, both camps were a terrific success and the obvious pleasure of the children a delight to behold!
I strongly feel every club in Thurles (and nationally) should and could run such a camp.
There are organisational templates in existence and much support at the highest levels of the GAA to encourage this endeavour of inclusion. Parents of children with needs would travel to the moon and back to access a camp for their children and my question is - why should they have to travel away from home when there are plenty of wonderful clubs on their doorstep?
Yours faithfully,
Nathalie O’Callaghan.

‘ONE OF OUR OWN’
‘Ashamed as Tipp supporter’

Dear Editor,
I am ashamed as a Tipperary supporter at the way the current County Board treated one of our best players. The announcement smells of a deal already done with someone else, but this is not the way to treat one of our greats. Maybe there is something else going on behind the scenes that I don’t know about, but in the absence of this information, I am ashamed.
It took a former Kilkenny great Eoin Larkin to speak out, where are our former and current players, to come out and say what they believe, it looks like, I am missing something here and if I am so be it, but if I am not , then Tipp people should be so ashamed of how one of our greats has been treated.
And by the way the rot did not happen in Colm’s tenure. It started way before his tenure, we won two under 20 titles and why were these players not developed and integrated into the current panel, before some of our former greats retired.
Former managers of Tipperary hold much greater responsibility for where we are now and not Colm Bonnar.
Yours faithfully,
Pat Creed