Gortin community rallies to raise funds for Creeslough

GORTIN St Patrick’s GAA club has donated over £2,000 to the Creeslough community following the terrible tragedy in the north Donegal village last month.

On October 7, an explosion at an Applegreen filling station in Creeslough killed ten people and left eight hospitalised.

In the wake of the tragedy, the St Patrick’s club decided to donate that week’s proceeds from the drive-in bingo in Gortin, also inviting donations from its club members and the local community.

Club chairman, Fergal Daly and committee member, Brian Muldoon visited Creeslough at the weekend to hand over the proceeds of the ‘Club Appeal for the Cresslough Community’.

In total, £2,110 was raised and passed to Naomh Micheál (Creeslough GAA) chairman, Liam McElhinney and secretary, Ann-Marie Kelly to distribute to support the community.

St Patrick’s chairman, Fergal Daly said, “My immediate thought after hearing the awful news in Creeslough was ‘how can we help as a club in some way?’ For two weeks we collected in local shops, pubs, online and at the local whist and drive-in bingo. We decided to make it more personal and to show support from one rural GAA community to another that we would donate to the Naomh Micheál club.

“I was delighted to travel on behalf of everyone last Sunday with my wife Berardina and club stalwart Brian Muldoon to hand over the cheque to Liam and Ann Marie from the Creeslough GAA club. We are just one of many clubs in Ireland who have done the same.

“We hope it can help in some small way and I suppose it’s another example of how the GAA family come together to help each other in times of need.

“We would like to thank our community and club members for the generous donations and we continue to keep the Creeslough community in our thoughts and prayers as their community moves forward.”