At a reception in UCD last night Ken Hanamy from Cadburys and Noel Delaney from Grant Thornton arrived to offer their continued support of 3rd level GAA scholarships.

Ken Hanamy was there to present the two recipients scholarships in conjunction with the Cadburys Under 21 All Ireland Football Championship. Director of Sport, Brian Mullins congratulated our two recipients; Cormac Boyle a 2nd year Arts student from Westmeath and Aaron Murphy, a 1st year Food Science student from Wicklow, on their achievement in being named a Cadbury Football Scholars this year and wished the students the best of luck in this years championship with their respective counties.

In relation to Grant Thornton, their support of goes back many years to the great Sean Murray and has enabled our national games to thrive. The late Sean Murray who was a partner in Grant Thornton and a former captain of the UCD Sigerson team and a Longford inter county player founded the UCD Gaelic Football graduates committee and was its chairman until his untimely death.

Brian Mullins again on behalf of UCD Sport and in particular UCD GAA thanked Noel Delaney from Grant Thornton and acknowledged Grant Thornton’s continued generous support of Gaelic Games on the UCD campus.

Grant Thornton in his memory initiated a scholarship bursary to help promising UCD players fulfil their academic and sporting ambitions. We have been fortunate that Noel from Grant Thornton and Laois has continued in Sean as footsteps and has always shown great interest in our teams.

The recipients of last night’s Grant Thornton scholarships were Kildares Peter Kelly, a Masters student, UCD Sigerson Captain and GAA All-Star in 2010; Donie Kingston, a 3rd year Arts student from Laois playing U21 and Senior Football and finally Galways Colin Forde. A 4th year Physiotherapy student and All-Ireland U21 Captain.

Congratulations to all recipients and again sincere thanks to Cadburys and Grant Thornton for their support and generosity to GAA in UCD.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish our ladies senior footballers, hurlers and camogie players and their mentors the best of luck in their respective Championship campaigns. We hope to see the Fitzgibbon, O’Connor and Ashbourne Cups back in Belfield with the Sigerson Cup in the coming weeks!