To-nights agenda - Starting at 8pm

1. Welcome & Opening of the Forum by Anthony Stack - Club Chairman
   
2. Sponsorship presentation by BUPA Ireland (Deo O'Connor & Lisa Kelly)
   
3. Tarbert GAA Centenary (1904-2004) - Launch by John McGee & Laura Lavery.
   
4. Open Forum - Your chance to put Questions to our Panel Members
   
5. Easter Lotto Draw - Your chance to win € 8,500 and many more prizes
   
6. Ceol, Caint agus Craic until late………….
   

Tarbert GAA Centenary Celebrations:
As our Kerry team was winning their 1st All-Ireland Football title in 1903, Tarbert Gaels were having their own local business to attend to. Local folklore has it that at an AGM either later in 1903 or very early in 1904 the Tarbert Magpies became the Tarbert GAA Club. And as they say "The rest is history………."
The 100th / centenary anniversary of this momentous occasion is now upon us and preliminary plans are been drawn up to mark the event.
The Tarbert GAA Club want to make the celebrations as inclusive as possible and make this occasion one that all Tarbert people can feel proud of and take part in. With this in mind the Club will shortly be issuing invitations to all local organisations to join us in the planning phase of this event.
We would also like you to get as many people with Tarbert connections, no matter how tenuous, to come and visit during the various different planned events. You can help by telling you friends and family, especially those living outside the Parish to keep up to date on developments by logging on to our Website www.tarbertgaa.com
We would also love to hear from you on any ideas that you might have on how we could add to the centenary celebrations. So no matter how crazy it may sound just get those ideas back to us ASAP. Every idea/ suggestion will be acknowledged and fully evaluated. Please help us to make the celebrations really memorable. You can send your ideas by post, by email or simply mention it to any member of the committee.
In the meantime here are some provisional dates for the diary: -

Wednesday 31st December 2003 - New Year's Eve, always special and unique in Tarbert. Some additional fireworks planned with the unveiling of the Centenary Flag in the Square by our Centenary Personalities ' John Mc Gee & Laura Lavery'.
Sunday August 1st 2004 - Sunday August 8th 2004 - Centenary welcome home week - its content, programme and duration will depend on the support we get within the Parish with the organisation and running of the events.

Did you know that since we launched www.tarbertgaa.com at our last Forum on the 30th December 2001?

• Total number of people visiting www.tarbetgaa.com ……………….15,615
  
• Average page hits per session………………………….. ………………….3
  
• Average session Duration in seconds ……………………………………. 90
  
• Visitors spending 1 minute or less on the site…………………13,491(86%)
  
• Total number of website 'hits' (the number of files served by the site) ..319733
  
• Number of people spending an hour or more on the site ………………..19
  
• 31 /01/ 2003 the busiest day at www.tarbertgaa.com (no of page hits) 791
  
• 1367 people from around the world have read the Tarbert Notes via the site
  
• Breakdown of traffic by Continent
  
  • North America 45%
    
  • Europe 20%
    
  • South America 6%
    
  • Australia & Oceania 4%
    
  • Asia 1%
    
  • Africa 0.1%
    
  • (Unable to identify) 23.9%
    

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Anthony Stack
Chairman Tarbert GAA Club


Tarbert - GAA Club's Open Forum -2003
Some Background on our Centenary Celebrations

1. The centenary idea - it all began at our first forum on the 30th.December 2001 when we were able to establish with some degree of certainty that the Tarbert Magpies became the Tarbert GAA club in 1904. Before that we know that : -
   
   1. In 1889 a team from Kilrush came across in their own ferry and their 2nd team (Juniors) beat Tarbert Rovers by 2-1 to 0.4 Their seniors played Irramore with the match abandoned after 20 minutes on the same day.
      
   2. On Sunday 30th July 1899 Tarbert and Ballylongford began over 100 years of great rivalry with the Rovers going down to a score of 2-4 to 0-9 pts.
      
   3. At the County Convention on the 4th.May 1901 Listowel 'represented' North Kerry even though there were by then clubs in Ballylongford, Knockanure, Lixnaw, Duagh and our own Tarbert Rovers.
      
   4. On Sunday the 13th.October 1901 in Fitzmaurice's field (now Walls) Tarbert Rovers won the 'return match' with Ballylongford by 0-8points to 1-1.
      
   5. 1904 - Tarbert beat Ballylongford in the North Kerry Region semi-final and went on to beat Irramore in the final. Could the famous photograph of 1904 have been taken at the final?
      
      
      The 1904 Tarbert Team and subs were as follows: -
      J. Wren (Capt.), G. Leahy, P. Doherty, C. Magee, M. McCarthy, D. Wren, T. Scanlon, D. Walsh, D. Meskell, T. Dillon, T. Holly, P. Murphy, J. Carrig, D. Brandon, P. O'Donnell, J. O'Sullivan.
      
      
   6. What we do know is that Con McGee played for Tarbert in 1904 and to-night we are delighted to have his youngest son John (who himself played for Tarbert and life long supporter) as one of our two Centenary Personalities.
      
   7. To keep the gender balance in tact our other Centenary personality is young Laura Lavery who can play football with Tarbert's finest underage teams. Laura carries on a local family tradition of many generations - from both sides of her family.
      
   8. John and Laura - who by co-incidence have a combined age of 100 years later this year - will launch the announcement of 1904-2004 Centenary Celebrations.