Dementia service of Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh's GAA commentaries launched online - RTÉ News
Dominique Farrell
An initiative supporting people living with dementia has been unveiled in Croke Park, with an archive of the late Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh's iconic GAA commentary used to spark memory and connection through reminiscence therapy.
Called 'The Replay', it is an online audio service that brings together a full catalogue of Ireland’s GAA history in the form of audio match commentary from All-Ireland football and hurling finals between 1985 and 2010.
The service has been created through a collaboration between The Alzheimer Society of Ireland, the GAA and RTÉ Archives, with the full support of the Ó Muircheartaigh family.
The Replay is designed to ignite the imagination and trigger fond memories amongst the wider population and to support positive ageing and brain health more generally.
Matches are easily searchable by game, year or county through a simple user interface, allowing families, carers and communities to revisit the sounds that defined generations.
Eamonn Ó Muircheartaigh, son of famous GAA commentator of Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, has described the service as incredible.
He told RTÉ News: "It’s incredible even that I’m sitting here outside Croke Park and listening to the commentary again, I’d say if I was wearing a heart monitor it would have spiked at 150 beats per minute."
He said he remembered being at some of the games as a child when he used to help his father to keep the score.
He described The Replay as a fantastic project: "It’s magical to think that my father’s commentaries would continue to bring joy and excitement, and bring back happy memories, more importantly, to people who are suffering from dementia."
He said that he thought that many people would visit the site as a distraction from all the bad news at the moment, adding: "I do a lot of cycling and I can’t wait to get on the bike and listen to dad again describing the action from Croke Park, or Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney, or wherever."
TheReplay.ie is now available online
here.