Mullingar Shamrocks joins GAA's Healthy Club project

A large crowd converged on Mullingar Shamrocks GAA’s clubhouse at Springfield, Mullingar on Sunday last, as the SFC final-bound football club launched its involvement in Croke Park’s new Healthy Club initiative.

Mullingar Town Band took to the pitch to mark the occasion with musical accompaniment, as Frank Mescall (Healthy Club Officer, Westmeath GAA) and Sarah McCormack (lead officer, Healthy Ireland) completed the launch formalities.

Sean Hynes (Mullingar Shamrocks GAA chairman) and Joan Ormsby (Healthy Club Officer, Mullingar Shamrocks) also addressed the audience.

Central to the launch day was a Healthy Clubs Information Village at the Springfield club house, featuring local health and wellbeing groups, agencies and sports clubs.

Whelehan’s Pharmacies and Keane’s CarePlus Pharmacies attended, providing free blood pressure, diabetes and haemoglobin tests, while Specsavers Mullingar provided an audiologist and optician to do wax checks and colour vision tests for the young people.

Only 150 of the GAA’s 1600 clubs have been included in this national initiative, and thanks to the efforts of the club’s Health and Wellbeing Officer, Joan Ormsby, Mullingar Shamrocks were included in the third phase of the project.