WITH spring in the air, playing fields throughout Ireland will soon be filled with the cheerful sounds of children enjoying Gaelic Games.
Sadly, not so very far away boys and girls are fleeing their homes in terror as war rages in their native Ukraine. Sport is a luxury that those children and their families do not have and GAA clubs have been at the forefront of appeals organised for donations of food and clothing which will be transported to the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have poured into neighbouring countries ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24.
Tyrone club Beragh Red Knights will begin their collection next week and club chairman Brian McCartan explained how local rivalries with neighbouring Tattyreagh GAC had been set aside in support of the parish-wide initiative.
“We have got on board to give our club as a collection point and the parish is working with Altamuskin Flying School who are going to send lorries out to Poland,” said Brian.
“It’s a community effort and you’d be more than happy to help out. When you turn on the TV and you see the scenario in front of you it touches home. It’s not what we want to be seeing and whatever we can do to help out we’ll do and we’re not the only ones, it’s a worldwide effort.
“Tattyreagh are supporting it too and Drumduff Community Centre is the other collection point in Beragh Parish.”
Meanwhile, Moscow-based former Louth hurler Alan Moore says refugees from the war are also crossing the border into Russia.
Moore is the PRO of European GAA Board and has been based in Russia’s capital since 2008 where he remains a keen Gaelic Footballer with the Moscow Shamrocks club.
The Dublin native, who works as director of the International Office of the National University of Science and Technology, says the Russian people are “just getting on with it” but are unhappy that their president Vladimir Putin took the decision to invade their neighbours.
“You get up in the morning and go to work and do your best,” he said.
“It’s a terrible situation in Ukraine. No-one is comfortable with it, no-one is happy about it.
“People here were in shock when the invasion started, then they weren’t happy, then they were saying: ‘This has to stop, this is not good’. But the longer it has gone on, the harder it will be to stop the war.
“I work with young people and I can see them getting very annoyed with how Russians are being portrayed as savages and barbarians - that’s all the time now on social media.
“People say they should be out protesting on the streets but I heard a student saying: ‘A couple of million people marching in London in 2003 didn’t stop Tony Blair from going into Iraq, so what chance have some students in Moscow?’”
The economic sanctions levied against the country by the West are expected to be severe but Moore says they will change very little in Russia. The rich will keep their wealth and the poor will struggle to make ends meet, he predicts.
“They’ve been through economic crises before – this will be the third I’ve come through since I’ve been living here,” he said.
“The rich people will still have their villas in France, or London and the poor people will get a fortnight camping somewhere.”
