How Clonlara claimed the title of Best Club 2010

• The Clonlara GAA club is a relatively small club in comparison to other clubs across the country. We have been punching well above our weight in recent years. Clonlara is a small rural village in east Clare with just over 2,500 people. We won our first senior hurling championship in 1919. Unfortunately, the club had to wait nearly 90 years before repeating that feat. Clonlara won the Clare and Munster Intermediate hurling championship in 2007. This breakthrough sparked off an unprecedented period in the club. The senior team continued this momentum by winning the senior championship, league and U21 county titles in 2008.
  
  This success was very much due to the determined efforts at underage in the past few years which resulted in two county Féile na nGael titles in a row. This success has fed to county level also with six club members winning an U21 All Ireland in 2009 including the U21 player of the year Darach Honan and the captain of the 2010 U21 team John Conlon.
  
  The club fields over 12 teams yearly in football and hurling with over 50 mentors involved. Scoil Senain Naofa in Clonlara is one of the most successful hurling schools in Clare. In 2009 the school won the A hurling and B football. Both the school and the club work very closely to ensure that both girls and boys of the school enjoy playing GAA. An underage committee was formed in 2008 to look after the underage teams in the club. This will help ensure a solid foundation is in place to safeguard the clubs future and to ensure young members continue to enjoy playing our games.
  
  
  
  The club are very much involved in the community. Last year, a member of the club set up a charity called the Clonlara Heart Fund to raise awareness of SADS and to purchase three defibrillators for the community. This initiative has already helped save a life early this year when a man collapsed of cardiac arrest at a Clonlara match and trained club members helped save his life. Members of the GAA club also helped many families in need during the recent flooding with tractors, sandbags and food.
  
  Club members helped build a sports complex recently beside the club grounds which offers community members state of the art sports facilities. This facility, together with the development of a new GAA field, would not have been possible without the tireless, voluntary, hard work of the Clonlara GAA members. The GAA club regularly run successful fund raising events including an annual community family day on the 15th August. The club, like many others, fosters a very cooperative environment within the community and this will continue well into the future.
  
  I strongly feel that Clonlara GAA deserves this reward from Etihad in recognition of our recent success on and off the field in making a small aspiring rural club one of the most successful and recognised clubs in the country.

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