Ciara Mageean

But I certainly had it in Camogie and I still love it.

It's funny, like yesterday I chatted to Mary, my mother-in-law-to-be, and she's like, God, you got choked up talking about Gerry last night.

And I was like, and somebody was like, I think you always will.

And I feel like in life, there's a handful of people that make a lasting legacy.

And of course, in your journey through life, there's amazing people that add little bits.

But there's some that whenever you look back, that you're like, that person was so important in that moment in my life and so important in...

the person that I've become.

And Gerry and everybody who knew Gerry, I feel like he was that person to so many of us.

I'm so lucky that I got to

to be coached by him but so lucky that I got to know him as a person and he helped me figure out who I was as a person because I joined UCD I um it's always difficult you're a little rural kid coming to a big campus the there's more people in that campus than there was in my hometown um so that's really daunting and then I got injured and I didn't run and I had this real identity crisis of I am the runner that's what I was known as his home at home but I'm not able to run and what

Who am I if I am not the sport that I am competing in?

And Gerry taught me that I am Ciara and the value in just being me.

He called me Ragazza.

He loved Italy and the Italian language.

And I'm fairly sure that's probably what I was saved as on his phone.

He would pop round to the house with some liver for me to eat because I...

Struggle to get my iron levels up.

Like this is the type of person that Gerry was.

And if there was no liver, he gave me black pudding, which was a little more palatable.

But I did joke.