Brian Tansey gave his life to helping others, especially the youth in whom he continually instilled a love of sport and knowledge of the skills of several sporting disciplines. Brian was a native of Cuilmore, Curteen, but he spent most of his life residing in the Ballaghaderreen area. He gave many years of loyal service as a player with Eastern Harps and even though he was very actively involved with Ballaghaderreen GAA Club and with practically every sporting organisation in the area, his first sporting loyalty lay with his native County Sligo. It was with the Community Games movement that he made the greatest, though not exclusive, contribution over the years. At the time of his death he was the Chairperson of Ballaghaderreen Community Gamcs Committee. While most chairpersons presided over activities and chaired the meetings etc., this was not Brian's style. He led from the front, he was the coach/trainer/manager/coordinator for several sporting disciplines, especially Gaelic football, soccer, handball, athletics and gymnastics. There was nothing he liked better than to see children taking an interest in sport, learning the basic skills of the sport and then competing fairly and to the best of their ability. He lived the objectives of Community Games in ensuring that every child was given the opportunity to learn the skills and participate. Brian's Community Games involvement was not confined to the Ballaghaderreen area. He was for many years a most active member of the County Executive Committee and the highlight of his involvement at this level was his years as County PRO. This involved the collating of information on activities throughout the county each weekend and the preparation of a weekly report for submission to local newspapers. Although Brian was not into computers, he never failed to get his handwritten copy to the papers in time. This work was done simultaneously with his work on the playing fields and with the task of rearing his young family, which always came first in his life. He also was actively involved in co-ordinatillg inter-club football and soccer fixtures as well as other events, and he also refereed many such games. Indeed, this work often involved Brian marking out pitches, putting up goal nets etc. before games. For many years he has acted as team manager with the Roscommon participants at the Community Games national finals weekends in Mosney. Brian was the well-deserved recipiant of many awards for his Community Games involvement, including the Roscommon VEC Sports Persollality of the Year award. Brian's personal life had not been easy as his wife Helen died at a young age when their four children were very young. Despite this, he reared them to be successful young people in the community and he instilled in them a love of sport to such extent that each of them holds high-level awards for sports such as gymnastics, athletics and football. Courtesy of the Roscommon Herald 3 June 2008 Tweet

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