Barryroe GAA

11 March, 2022

Echo Newspaper 11/03/2022 by Denis Hurley

WHEN Barryroe’s county lower intermediate hurling championship campaign got underway against Ballygarvan in September, Barryroe’s dugout had an empty chair next to it, reserved for the man listed in the programme as number 25.

Killian Lawton – a county U21BFC winner with Ibane Gaels, the Barryroe/Argideen Rangers combination, in 2016 – was not physically present, taken by cancer in July at the heartbreakingly young age of 24, but the mark he made during his short life was a strong one and his memory is carried by his family, the club and a huge circle of friends.

Over the Easter weekend, April 15-18, Killian will be remembered – along with Alice Crowley and Michael Clancy, who died in 2018 and 2020 respectively – with a fundraising virtual run/walk/hike in aid of Marymount Hospice. Killian, the youngest of five children, spent three weeks there, a home from home during his final days, receiving the top-class care that characterises the facility.

People are being asked to set their own distance and goals – 5km, 10km, a half-marathon or even a full marathon – with the €20 tickets being bought online from locations all over the world. A similar event held during the first lockdown in November 2020 saw more than 600 sign up, raising €18,000 for Marymount.

“My Dad, my sister and my nephews did a Christmas swim for Killian and that raised an incredible €10,000 for Marymount,” says his sister Nora, “and then Alannah Crowley mentioned that the 2020 run had been done for her mother Alice and asked if we’d like the 2022 one to be for Killian.

“He was an extraordinary person. I can’t even tell you how intelligent he was – he always understated how well he had done in the Leaving Cert so as not to be blowing his own trumpet.

“He graduated from UCC in 2019 with a BSc in financial mathematics and actuarial science and he spent nine months working in London. Every year that he was in college, he went travelling during the summer and what’s amazing to us is that he had such a massive group of friends, from Barryroe, from Clonakilty, from his UCC days, from his short stint in London.

“Killian worked in the Lifeboat Inn in Courtmacsherry and in Barryroe Co-op with my Dad, and he worked part-time in the international students’ office in UCC, plus so many people knew him through the GAA.

“Killian was the ultimate sports fan – Barryroe, Ibane Gaels, Cork City, Chelsea, Munster, Ireland rugby, the Lions, golf, Formula 1 – I live in Brussels and there’s a big group of us going to the Belgian Grand Prix in his memory in August. My nephews, Sean and Conor, were with Killian for almost all of the three weeks he was in Marymount and they’ll be part of that trip, which will be nice. It’ll be a case of West Cork taking over Spa!

“He even had tickets lined up for the Rugby World Cup next year, so we’ll have to go to France for that too!

“Paul O’Connell would have spoken to him a lot during his illness and one day on his way home from CUH he got chatting to Seán Óg Ó hAilpín at the Quirkey Kitchen in Innishannon, which his partner Siobhán runs. After that he used to stop in there a lot to talk to him and one day we were there for nearly three hours!

“One of Killian’s friends, Seán Holland, got the Munster team to send a video message, when some of the players were in South Africa last July. That meant so much. We had Ben Chilwell of Chelsea lined up to speak to him after the Euros too but by that stage he was too sick. The Chelsea squad did send a letter in July but it seems they didn’t put enough postage on it and so it didn’t arrive until September 8 – that was Killian’s birthday and we felt it had to be a sign.

“When we laid Killian out, we dressed him in one of his favourite Cork jerseys, the black Mac Curtain and MacSwiney commemorative one from 2020. When Seán Óg heard this, he messaged me to say Killian is a mighty Gael in the true sense and he won’t be forgotten.”

Shortly before he passed away, Killian said: “Don't count the days, make the days count.” This fundraiser epitomises that approach.

Tickets are available here