The impact the late, great Eamonn Ryan had on Gaelic games coaching was fittingly recognised last Saturday when he was posthumously honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the 2022 GAA Coaching Conference.

Best known for his achievements with the Ladies Senior Football team that saw him manage them to 10 All-Ireland titles, Ryan also had great success in many other levels of the game.

Prior to Eamonn’s involvement, the Cork Ladies had won no major honours at National or provincial level.

In 2014 the Cork Ladies won the RTE team of the year after a public vote that recognised the achievements of Eamonn and all the Cork players.

He qualified as a primary School Teacher out of St. Patricks in Drumcondra and taught in the Local School in Watergrasshill and became principal of the school in later years.

As a teacher he taught everything to his pupils, from Shakespeare, to classical music to coaching hurling and football, to both boys and girls during and after school who affectionally referred to as ‘The Master’.

Eamonn loved getting people involved in his activities and had a great ability in making everyone feel part of the group and could get the very best out of everyone in the group. This is very evident from his coaching CV in that he was involved in many a ‘breakthrough’ season with so many teams.

Eamonn had this great ability in that when he was speaking to a group you could sense that he was speaking directly to you and you always wanted to do your very best for him. His ability to tell stories about life and relate them to the games was one of his great traits. For Eamonn, you were a person first and a player second.

Eamonn was also involved in training tutors to deliver the GAAs Coach Education programme. His approach was the same as he was coaching – he was talking to you as a person first and not as a tutor.

He certainly made you think about how you approach delivering a course so that you could get the best out of the room. Eamonn always maintained that if you worked the room and got to know the course attendants as people that the knowledge and information would flow effortlessly on that course.

When giving feedback on the course Eamonn always asked, “what you would do”, not, “this is what I would have done”. A brilliant skill which he passed to so many tutors.

Eamonn loved coaching and was always willing to help when he could if he could and he was a sounding board for many a person/player/coach during his life time.

“He leaves a huge legacy,” said GAA President, Larry McCarthy.

“The most well-known part of it was obviously his involvement with Cork ladies, but I think his legacy is much bigger than that. It’s not just those All-Irelands, it’s the fact that he brought humanity and humility to his coaching role.

“And, as a coach educator, he was able to impart that to others. He never, ever had an ego about it. He was so intuitive and so in tune with the athletes that he had. He was absolutely magnificent.”