Proud Clonduffians who participated in the special Celebratory Mass in St John the Evangelist Church, Ballymaghery, to kick-start what turned out to be a wondrous day of celebration. Words are hard to find to describe it – but here goes!
At INF Hall the 400 guests were greeted with a Mulled Wine/Soft Drinks reception and a group of local musicians playing traditional music. Formal proceedings got under way about 3.30pm in the capable hand of Fear na Tí Francis Quinn and Fintan Mussen. Each of the seven courses of the Banquet were led out by one of ‘our sporting greats’ – local men and women wearing appropriate face masks and stopped along the way to shake the hand of the real man/woman whose mask they were wearing. The courses were interspersed with 15-20 min slots of facts and an awful lot of humour, as well as video clips from our emigrants in San Francisco, Chicago, Melbourne, Sydney and London and live Skype link-ups to Paddy ‘Badger’ Brown and Eugene ‘Darner’ O’Hagan in New York and Sean Spiers in San Francisco. What a feat! By the end of the evening over 1,700 people were following the live streaming via www.panthersolutionstoday.com
