Mayo GAA kicked off their official launch of the Laochra Mhaigh Eo fund-raising drive to redevelop the surface of the pitch at MacHale Par, on St Patrick's Day with a afternoon full of insight and entertainment broadcast on their social media channels.
The Laochra Mhaigh Eo is offering Mayo GAA supporters from all over the world a chance to include themselves in a little bit of history. They are installing a wall of heroes at the back of the stand in the ground, which will celebrate the three All Ireland winning sides from 1936, 1950 and 1951 - and there is still going to be plenty of room to hopefully include other championship-winning sides in the future.
Supporters can purchase a tile that will be installed around one of the three All Ireland winning teams, with their own personal message of support or memory or dedication to a loved one on it.
The ground itself celebrated its 90th birthday this week and that's why the Cairde Maigh Eo fundraising arm of the county board kicked off the official launch of the Laochra Mhaigh Eo project on Wednesday.
Speaking to the Mayo Advertiser to outline the plans for the project, Ciaran O'Hara, chairperson of Laochra Mhaigh Eo told us: "Late last year the county board came to us to come up with an idea that would fund-raise for the resurfacing of MacHale Park, there are about 20 people in the group and very early on this idea came up.
"Tom Maloney, who is on the committee from London had seen one in the Emirates Stadium, where Arsenal play and when we looked into more, we saw that Leitrim had fundraised for their centre of excellence by doing something similar selling bricks.
"The county board had other objectives too, they wanted a greater history of the stadium and a greater link to the Mayo GAA community too. These all tied in together nicely - we could fundraise for the pitch and the people could add their own memory or celebrate someone in MacHale Park.
"If we are over subscribed we can add more, it's a big wall. The centrepiece is the three All Ireland winning teams and if we hopefully need to add another one on there in the near future we can do so too - it's a big wall!"
"The target that we set is 1,200 it will go a long way towards carrying out the work on the pitch, should we surpass that all monies over will be ring fenced for works on the stadium in the future - this is a fundraiser for the stadium and the stadium alone.
"The stadium is 90 years old this week, that is why we started on St Patrick's Day, we booked the project with the St Patrick's Day launch and will end it with Mayo Day."
There are a number of options available to purchase to support the project, a tile on the wall costs €250, a tile and replica tile for yourself is €395, a tile and Mayo GAA TV pass for the season costs €300, and a premium tile option which will see four tiles is available for €1,000 and might be suited to a family, club or business who wish to contribute to the project.
For more information on the Laochra Mhaigh Eo project log on to: https://www.themayoheroeswall.com.
