Patricia Watterson pictured at Croke Park after completing her charity walk from Ben Dearg GAC in Kilclief, Co. Down. The walk was in memory of Patricia's late husband and Kilclief stalwart, Pat Watterson.
By Michael Devlin
Sunday, June 16, marked the one year anniversary of the sad passing of a giant of Kilclief Ben Dearg GAC, Pat Watterson.
Pat was a Downpatrick man, and served the local GAA club there, the Russell Gaelic Union, as a player and committee member. In the late 1960’s, he took up a headmaster post in St Malachy’s Primary School in Kilclief, a village on the edge of Co. Down’s eastern coast, in a small area that juts out over the Strangforld Lough known as Lecale.
“When Pat did that, he basically just immersed himself in everything in Kilclief,” says Ben Dearg club member and Pat’s close friend, Phelim Sharvin. “His family would have been from farming stock in the area, so he always had ties.”
Not before long, Pat started lining out for the Ben Dearg senior football team, who were then Down Division One Champions. They were prominent participants in a competition known as the ‘Top Four’, a precursor to what is now the Ulster Club Championship.
The club was officially formed in 1901, but there had been Gaelic games played in the parish before that. Hearts of Down and the Red Hands clubs came together to form Ben Dearg, who took their name from the red cliffs of Killard that meet the Irish Sea.
In the earlier days, up through the 1920’s and 30’s, Kilclief established a strong hurling heritage. They held the long-standing record for the most Senior County Hurling Championships with 23 titles, until surpassed recently by Ballycran in 2015. Their last Championship triumph came in 1956.
“There would have been a very strong Gaelic culture here in the early years of the association, and that would have manifested itself in a very strong hurling team,” says Phelim. “They would have made up the bulk of the Down County hurling teams in those early decades.”
During the 1950s, the Ards hurling teams like Ballycran, Ballygalget and Portaferry came to the fore, at which point Kilclief’s fortunes transferred over to football. This coincided with an upsurge in Down football that heralded All-Ireland victories in 1960, 1961 and 1968.
The first team to take the Sam Maguire Cup across the border, they were the trailblazers, the Sean O’Neill’s, Paddy Doherty’s and James McCartan’s of the world. In his playing days, Pat himself would have lined out against those Down greats, both for Downpatrick and then for Ben Dearg.
Every club however, especially small rural clubs, go through cycles, and Kilclief are no different. Their football team dropped down the divisions after the ‘60s, climbed back up again in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90s, competed strongly in Division Two for a period before dropping back down to Division Four in present times.
“It’s the common narrative of most GAA clubs, the peaks and troughs, but what would have been constant in our club would have been someone like Pat Watterson, who would have been constantly out on the coaching field with young kids, coaching them in the finer arts of football and hurling.”
Pat was a prime mover in Down GAA circles. He became a member of the county hurling board, the local Féile Committee, and the Cumann na mBunscol organisation, making many lifelong friends across the county. He was noted for his fantastic ability to coach and inspire, but also his great patience, and his profession as a schoolteacher made him apt for coaching young people on the playing field.
“One thing that someone remarked to me recently actually, is that Pat Watterson would have transcended club rivalries,” says Phelim. “People from the neighbouring clubs would say that regularly. He was a unique personality in that regard, he was held in great esteem.”
Kilclief Ben Dearg after winning the Down Intermediate Football Championship in 2011.
His influence was felt through generations of Ben Dearg teams, especially when Kilclief won the Down Intermediate football and hurling titles in the same year in 2011, with just a small pool of players to choose from.
“Pat would have coached everybody throughout he club. The amount of kids that got measured up for their first hurling stick that was taken out of the boot of his car. Up until recent times when he was unwell, my own kids were getting their first sticks from Pat Watterson.”
Last year Pat sadly passed away aged 79, after battling first leukaemia and then bowel cancer. Thanks to clinical research, funded by Cancer Research UK, Pat was able to enjoy six good years of life on a trial drug - years he continued to live to the fullest.
In his memory, and with the aim of raising £10,000 in aid of vital cancer research, his wife Patricia set out on the massive undertaking of walking 208 km from the grounds of Ben Dearg at Kilclief Park to Croke Park, two places close to Pat’s heart.
She began her trek along with family friend Francie Morgan on Sunday 26th May, two days before what would have been Pat’s 80th birthday, with the hope of arriving at Croke Park just before the first anniversary of his death on 16th June.
Patricia smashed her targets, reaching her destination on the 6th of June. On last count, the donation fund stood at a hefty £12,909. One that day, she and Francie powered through the final hundred yards to the stadium where she was proudly met by her children.
“Everybody up here were chuffed, but we weren’t surprised,” says Phelim. “Patricia has got a steely determination. It was a great tribute to Pat, someone who is steeped in the GAA.”
The late Pat Watterson and his wife Patricia.
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In his role as director of the Ulster Community Investment Trust, who operate as Community Finance Ireland in the south, Phelim Sharvin sees first-hand how funding for development can transform a club. Not least his own club, where he and of course Pat Watterson were central to delivering a community walkway.
“We are a social finance provider, and we lend money to GAA clubs. Pat was on the committee with me, and he immediately understood the benefits a walkway would bring.”
Ben Dearg’s pitch sits just out of Kilclief Bay onto Strangford Lough. A stunning vista, on a good day you can see the Isle of Man way off in the distance. The thin wedge into the lough is known as ‘The Narrows’, home to one of the fastest flowing currents in Europe.
“It’s perfect for a community walkway, and Pat would have seen that straight away. That was one of his interests, nature and landscapes. We pushed hard to pull that together and we got there. It was opened recently in his honour, which was fantastic. Delivering the walking path in memory of Pat was important to me”
While developing physical infrastructure and facilities in any club is vital, arguably more so is the investment in youth, strengthening identity and culture, and providing a broad range of social services for the local community. These are things that Kilclief Ben Dearg have been working hard at in recent years.
“Like every other club we have our own challenges,” says Phelim. “We have a good cohort of coaches at the juvenile level across football, hurling and camogie, and that’s what we are focusing on at the minute, instilling that love for GAA in them that Pat would have done over the years.
“I’ve often said around the committee table, development is not all about points and goals. It’s about the awareness of our culture, the sense of place and identity, and the belonging that a GAA club can give.
“That marries well with the more recent developments in the GAA around health and well-being, in educational support, in grants for the Irish language and things like that. Then you’re placing defibrillators on site, doing CPR training, and coaches education programmes as well. I think it is good times for the GAA in terms of the social impact it’s having beyond the playing pitch.”
Kilclief Ben Dearg U8 hurlers, stars of the future.
At the same time, Phelim and his follow club men and women are as happy and energised to be out on the training sod coaching Ben Dearg’s juvenile section. The reward when a senior team wins a championship is undeniably huge, but according to Phelim, it’s just as heart-warming to be out tutoring the under 8’s taking their first steps in the game.
“I think that’s what it’s all about. Our organisation is anchored by the club unit, the parish, and the volunteering within that. That volunteerism is no more evident than when you’re coaching. There were 30 under-8 footballers out on our pitch last night, including my young daughter, and it is great fun.
“Creating that traction, teaching the fundamentals to the kids, that’s what creates the lifelong members. That’s what it’s all about really. If we are half as good as Pat Watterson was, we’ll do a fine job.”