DCU's Kevin Diggins (Kildare) and NUIG's Fiona Tully (Roscommon) are the 2022 Irish 4-Wall Intervarsity champions, which took place last weekend in Belfast, coordinated by the Irish Collegiate Handball Association (ICHA).
Diggins defeated NUIG's Peter Donohue 15-6, 15-6 in the Men's Open Final, with Tully defeating Eilise McCrory (Liverpool John Moore's) 15-3, 15-5.
ICHA AGM 2022
Finances:
Kicking off the meeting with our Co-Treasurer Laura Finn sharing our financial accounts for the year and stressing our current financial position. Our tournaments are currently loss making, despite charging high entry fees etc. & possible negative future financial position should we not be able to receive GAA Grants in the future. Here we shared news that following our meeting with the National President Dessie Keegan and Interim Manager Tom Moloney on Friday evening last, our August 2021 GAA Grant Submission was being brought to the next GAA Handball Ard Chomhairle meeting for discussion, something which was very warmly received by everyone.
Election of Officers:
We welcome on board five new committee members whom we intend to train up over the coming months on how to run Intervarsity tournaments etc with a view to them eventually taking over later this year/early next year.
- Oran Kiernan PRO
- Katie Barrett Co-Treasurer
- Cliodhna O'Connell Co-Secretary
- Rory Grace Co-Treasurer
- Peter McCreesh Co-Secretary
2022-23 Intervarsity Tournaments locations:
- Softball Singles - Wexford (October)
- 4-Wall Doubles - Galway (November)
- 4-Wall Singles - Dublin (Jan/Feb)
- 1-Wall Singles - Dublin (March)
Social Media:
Our social media efforts over the weekend were very strong with PRO Ashling Mullin on hand taking photos and sharing to our social media channels throughout the weekend. We also Live Streamed the majority of our Ladies and Mens Open Finals and Semi-Finals (special mention to Gort na Mona GAA Handball Club for permitting us to utilise their excellent IT infrastructure). We also for the first time, took final rally clips from our match videos and forwarded these on via Vimeo download link to the major Irish broadcasters requesting inclusion in their evening sports news bulletins. Although we didn’t get featured on any yesterday evening, this is something we intend to continue to do as the clips were very well received digitally on social media.
I must stress this weekend was a major Team effort from the entire committee and others - shout out and big thank you to Kevin, Laura, Ashling, Anthony, Diarmaid, Alan, Oran K., David W., Conor H., Jack McN. for making this weekend the success that it was! Also to all the players for an incredible entry (80+ players) across all grades - Mens Open, A, B, C, Challenger & Contender, & Ladies Open, A, B and C, resulting in incredible play & matches! Well done all!
Kind regards,
Mark McDonnell
Chairperson - Irish Collegiate Handball Association