Many people will remember the death of Niall Donoghue, a 22-year-old inter-county Galway hurler who died by suicide in October 2013.

Since Niall’s death, his home club, Kilbeacanty GAA Club, has established it’s Be Well Programme to try to ensure no other parish has to go through what Kilbeacanty has, and their efforts started the week Niall died.

Local man JJ Grehan explains: “We were aware something like this could instigate more copycat suicides, especially when someone was as well-known as Niall, and was getting all this notoriety in the papers and on television.”

Mullagh native Iggy Clarke, who is a psychotherapist with a psychology background, former priest and who hurled for Galway himself, spoke to players before the funeral, stressing that drink is never the answer.

“When something dramatic like that happens, there can be very high emotions,” says Iggy, “so what some people do is they tend to look for some form of escape and alcohol is one. The other, to me, is something like social media or Facebook. People just kind of express themselves immediately and sometimes somewhat inappropriately and without too much thought.”

Iggy was brought in again afterwards to talk about grieving and Alan O’Grady, who is Kilbeacanty club secretary, says a lot of people, young and old, took a lot of comfort out of what he said. Iggy says he found the team very receptive to his words.

“I think that’s one of the things about a circumstance like that,” says Iggy. “When a shock happens or an emotional trauma, people are looking for answers and they’re looking for some kind of stability around it or some kind of sanity around it, and they’re very open.”

Other very practical measures were taken at the time of the funeral. The club didn’t want Niall’s friends and team-mates standing on roads and in car parks directing traffic, so a plan was put in place that saw neighbouring GAA clubs take care of this.

“There can be great rivalry but with something like that they’re great neighbours,” notes Iggy.

The funeral came and went but the community was wondering what could be done to prevent it ever happening again.

“When everyone leaves the graveyard ... the guys still had to go back in and train these youngsters the following week, the following month, the following year, and at the back of their minds all the time was: ‘Is there something else going on here? Is there someone else in the club who needs help?’” says JJ Grehan.

There was no blueprint to turn to, so the club went about developing a blueprint of their own.

Kilbeacanty decided it wanted a touchpoint, someone people could contact if they were in trouble – and so the position of wellness officer was born.

The club felt very strongly that the wellness officer shouldn’t be someone involved directly in the GAA club or with any of the teams. This is because a player may feel self-conscious speaking to someone invested in the team’s performance – the player may feel his mental health concerns would be perceived as a weakness on the pitch. That’s one reason why JJ Grehan was chosen for the task – he was a local but wasn’t involved in the club.

“JJ is not going to have the answers for you,” says Alan, “but at least he’s listening and there’s an ear there to say: ‘Look, let’s see what we can do, let’s try and work something out.’”

It wasn’t long before Croke Park started paying attention to what Kilbeacanty was doing and the GAA is now in the process of setting up a health and wellbeing panel in every county, comprised of psychologists, doctors and counsellors. Club wellness officers can fall back on these panels if they need them because the GAA has now decreed that every club should have appointed a wellness officer by next year’s AGM.

This is quite an achievement for “a small little intermediate club in the middle of nowhere” JJ said.

Kilbeacanty GAA club has also received great support from GAA stalwarts. Mícheál Ó’Muircheartaigh came to give a talk to the club and Henry Shefflin changed dates for a trip he was taking to America so he could join Kilbeacanty for its annual seven-a-side tournament (the Kilbeacanty 7s) to which he brought his team, Ballyhale Shamrocks.

Sports stars & mental health

While everyone is vulnerable to issues with their mental health, there is no doubt there are some challenges uniquely faced by sports players.

Alan O’Grady mentions a conversation he had with Ollie Canning who noted a lot of GAA players can be very depressed coming home on the bus after a game. It’s a very interesting point.

Players are often sitting on a bus for two to three hours after a defeat, with their headphones on. They may have made a mistake in the match but they’re just dropped to their car and there’s no follow-up – though they’re likely to receive plenty of feedback via social media.

“You’re the best in the world when you win and when you lose then you’re the worst in the world and you’re dealing with fellas who are 18, 19, 20 – they’re at a very impressionable age,” says JJ.

BE WELL programme

The Be Well programme is an extension and encapsulation of what JJ is doing as wellness officer.

It was officially launched with a coffee morning in February 2016. The programme involves talks on mental health issues and the club presented its flyers at the launch, which contain details of national organisations that people can call with their mental health concerns, as well as details of local contacts to be called in an emergency – for example, those trained in defibrillator use. These local contacts are divided up by the road they live on “so if something happens in a certain area, you don’t go picking the furthest lad away” Alan says.

“We’ll never know how many people phone these numbers,” says Alan. “If only one does it every year or one does it every 10 years we’d save that one person’s life – that’s the difference.

“It’s really only small things but small things can make a huge difference in rural Ireland, We’re not going to change the world, but at the end of the day what we’re trying to do is protect our own parish and other people can follow suit – that’s what we’d hope.” CL

If you have been affected by anything in this article, Samaritans is available for anyone in any type of distress 24 hours a day on 116 123.