Breeda has helped keep Tipp Town

athletics running for over 45 years

By Eamonn Lacey

Published Date: 27 October 2010

EAMONN LACEY begins a new series on volunteers in the community by speaking to Breeda Christie who has given a lifetime of service to athletics in Tipperary town - and who shows no sign of easing up on her workload despite approaching her 80th birthday.

"A lot of my children are from the country, about half of them ," says Breeda Christie.
Those children do not include her own five children but the forty kids from Tipperary Town and surrounding areas who attend Tipp Town Athletic club training sessions every week.
Her own children were the reason Breeda Christie became involved with the athletic club in the early sixties and they have all moved on now living all over the country.
She is one of the rarity among volunteers, a person who actually continues to act as a volunteer even when their own children have outgrown the organisation.

Breeda has devoted forty five years to Tipperary Town Athletic Club and does look on all the children from eight to nineteen as her own.
"I love doing what I do, the children are fantastic," said Breeda whose dedication, commitment and enthusiasm for what she does is admired and respected far and wide.

Breeda With Athletes Laura O'Dwyer & Nathan Crowe

Approaching her 80th birthday, Breeda is a very healthy and fit person who thrives on working and assisting the young people of the town for no reward, only for the satisfaction of maintaining the tradition of athletics in the town and the fulfilment of providing a sporting and social outlet for children in the community.
A native of Galbally, Breeda moved to Tipperary to live in Bohewrcrowe on the Limerick road with her husband Peter in 1965. Prior to moving to town she worked as an Army sister nurse in Collins Barracks.
She become involved in the Tipperary Town Athletic Club which had just been established in 1964 by Brother Joyce of the Christian Brothers.
"There was no athletics when we were young, we only had the Muintir na Tire sports, but when I moved to Tipperary town fortunately an athletic club had just started up,"

"I brought the kids and I was thrown in at the deep end and I am training them since," she said.
It was always her ambition that the club should have its own land.They survived for years thanks to the generosity of the Christian Brothers who gave them land to train on but she knew that the club needed t heir own home for long term survival.
She was one of the driving forces behind securing land from Canon Hayes behind the church for the athletic club.
"We moved up there with the soccer club and a very good committee was formed that was eventually responsible for the establishment of the Canon Hayes Centre in 1987" she said.

Breeda said the athletic club and its decision to take the land behind the church was the catalyst for that process and the club played a important role in not only providing their own facilities but the Canon Hayes Centre itself for all sports for the community.
"That centre is the envy of every town in Ireland. It was a lot of hard work and there was great workers on the committee and it is truly a wonderful asset to the town," she said.
The club has an all weather track at the centre and up to forty children attend the twice weekly sessions (Monday and Thursdays from 7 to 8 for all track and field sports.

She said that while she has given so much time and energy to the club and enjoyed it, the club had given so much back to her. She found the club of great support and inspiration to her to keep going when her husband Peter died ten years ago.
"When that happened, because of the athletic club I just had to get up and keep going and that was a great help to me. It was a life saver for me " she said.

"My own children got so much from the club when they moved away they could join clubs in Dublin and other places and it kept them out of the pubs and away from smoking," she said.
Breeda said that she was fortunate to have such a good group of parents involved on a voluntary basis in the club ."We have qualified coaches and a strong group of volunteers so we are in a good position. We encourage all parents to stay for the hour so that they can see what we do and hopefully they might get involved themselves. If parents are not involved you are hitting your head off a stone wall," said one of Tipp's top volunteers.

Article Reproduced with the

Kind Permission of the Editor of the Nationalist Newspapers, Clonmel