John steers Community Games into a new era

For a small population base relative to the country as a whole, Galway has regularly punched above its weight in terms of sports administration on this island.

Billy Glynn, for example, is the present Senior Vice-President of the IRFU, which means he will automatically become President in May or June of this year, the seventh Galwegians RFC member to hold that particular honour.

Just over a decade ago, it was Joe McDonagh who – as President of the GAA – set in motion the removal of the ban on security forces, all football games to be played in one calendar year, and a minimum of two championship games for every inter-county team.

Going further back in time, Henry St John Blake (known as Harry Blake) served four terms as President of the Irish Lawn Tennis Association, as well as being heavily involved with the Irish Amateur Swimming Association.

Now another Galway man is in a top post in the sporting world, with John Byrne having begun life this week as Chief Executive Officer of the Community Games.

The Henry Street native, who is also a member of the Irish Sports Council, is well-known in sporting circles, particularly in relation to soccer – he worked as Planning and Development Manager with the FAI for 10 years, a role that only ended late last year when the position was one of many made redundant by the association as a result of cutbacks.

John was the middle of 11 children – six boys and five girls – born to Michael and Lily Byrne of Henry Street, two people who were steeped in sport. Michael – who worked as a Housing Assistance Officer with Galway County Council – was secretary of both the Galway FA and the Connacht FA for many years, and the annual Michael Byrne Cup is named after him.

Lily was one of the O’Connors from Bohermore and she came from a GAA background - her father was a substitute on the 1923 Galway side that claimed the county’s first All-Ireland hurling title, and trained the Castlegar team that won five consecutive county titles from 1936.John played soccer with Galway Bohs and West United, as well as Gaelic football with Fr Griffins and Western Stars in the City League, but he readily admits that soccer was always his first love.

He attended St Patrick’s National School, making the natural progression to the Bish for his secondary schooling, and he is quick to point to the massive role played by the Patrician Brothers to the education of tens of thousands of boys in the city since they first began teaching in the city in 1827.

The school on Lombard Street came to be the largest National School in Ireland, and during the Famine provided a free breakfast for up to 1,000 pupils each day, as well as distributing clothing.“Half of Galway would have been educated by the Patrician Brothers down through the years, and I think it is a shame that their role in this city has never been really acknowledged or appreciated,” he says.One of the lasting friendships he formed was with Br Justin Madden, who is now living in Mountrath in Laois, and their friendship extended beyond the school walls.

“He was in charge of the soccer team in St Pats, and he had some great players, fellas like Kieran Joyce, Ray Flaherty and Jimmy Laffey, but he didn’t know how to keep them together and develop a really strong team.

“He was talking to my father about it one day, and Dad said to him ‘just form a club yourself’, so we sat down together and established Corrib Shamrocks in 1973, and two years later that team of Laffey, Joyce and Flaherty won the U-13 Connacht Cup, ” he recalls.

“When I went to the Bish, Eugene Dunleavy asked myself and Eamon Brennan (brother of the late TD and Minister, Seamus Brennan) to look after the First Year team. At the time there was no primary school competition, so we used to play St Pats, and they beat us two years on the trot,” he says.

In the same year as helping to form Corrib Shamrocks, John was also a central figure in setting up the Galway Junior Soccer Committee along with the likes of Br Justin, Joe Keating, Mike Killeen, Frank O’Connell, Mike O’Connor and Bernard Shapiro, who was helping to form Renmore AFC at the same time.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.