Pictured at the TUS Midlands Sports Awards, l-r: Jimmy Browne, TUS Chief Operating Officer; Mary Cregg, TUS VP Campus Services & Capital Projects; Vincent Cunnane, TUS President; Sean Reidy, TUS Hall of Fame inductee; Noreen Reidy, Sean's wife and TUS lecturer; Gordon Brett, TUS Sport & Recreation Manager; and Richard O'Hara, event MC.

Hall of Fame honour for Sean Reidy

Published: Wed 22 Apr 2026, 11:21 AM

Last updated: Wed 22 Apr 2026, 11:26 AM

Sean Reidy was inducted into the ‘Sports Department Hall of Fame’ at the recent TUS Midlands Sports Awards.

The award is designed to honour former students and staff who have excelled in competition, administration or coaching for the university. “Sean is one such former staff member deserving of joining our illustrious Hall of Fame,” said Sport & Recreation Manager Gordon Brett.

As a native of Cloughjordan, last year’s Liam MacCarthy Cup success for Tipperary brought Sean great satisfaction, while he also has a fondness for Leeds United.

In September 1992, Sean started working in what was then known as Athlone Regional Technical College (it later became Athlone Institute of Technology, before changing to Technological University of the Shannon in recent years), and he only recently retired.

Sean was chosen for the Hall of Fame award in recognition of his “outstanding contribution” to Athlone RTC, Athlone IT and TUS and for “total commitment to sport on the campus”.

Sean’s sporting background is mainly in hurling and rugby with some golf, squash, soccer and Gaelic football thrown in for good measure. In his younger days, Sean played hurling for his home parish team, Kilruane McDonaghs.

Sport was also a focal point as he attended Cistercian College, Roscrea where he played hurling and rugby for the school teams. University College Galway was another place where Sean made full use of his spare time, outside of studying, and he managed to play hurling, squash, soccer and Gaelic football.

Following his college days and during a six-year stint working in Dublin, Sean played rugby in the winter and hurling and golf in the summer. However, severing his ACL in the winter of 1992 while playing rugby with Athlone RFC resulted in Sean’s premature end as a competitive sports man on the field of play.

Coaching and management loomed large and Camillus King, who was training both hurling and camogie teams in Athlone RTC at the time, asked Andy Fogarty and Sean to take on the hurling team in 1993. The hurlers were in Division 2 in the League and in the Ryan Cup in the Championship.

By 1996, using the guile and experience of Sean and Andy, Athlone RTC won their first Ryan Cup title and were promoted to Division 1. The team survived in Division 1 for a few years, including beating UCD to stay up on one occasion. This allowed Athlone RTC to play in the Fitzgibbon Cup for a number of years.

Sean was never one to stand back and not offer his time to all manner of sports events hosted by Athlone RTC or Athlone IT. When AIT hosted the Fitzgibbon in 2015, Sean was very visible in taking on roles such as umpire and was even a linesman who closely witnessed the one and only Davy Fitzgerald getting sent from the sideline for abusing a referee.

In 1996, when sports scholarships were first introduced at ARTC, Sean again was on hand to help out and sat on many scholarship interview panels in support of then Head of Sport Richard O’Hara (the 2024 Inductee into the Hall of Fame).

From 2009 to 2016, AIT hosted the National Community Games finals. Sean volunteered at each of the games every summer over each of the three weekends of the games.

In latter years, Sean helped Charlie Couper and Kevin O’Sullivan with rugby teams, also showing prospective students and their families the college facilities, both sporting and academic.

Andy Fogarty, Sean’s fellow hurling coach and lecturer, said the following: “Sean is above all most proud of having genuinely made a difference in the lives of countless students and staff. He has certainly done that and more. Sean epitomises the spirit of collegiality and camaraderie and you he will be sorely missed by all in TUS.”

Sean himself said: “Many thanks to all the students and staff I met through sports, and the many ‘sports chats’ we had along the way, most especially on the Mondays after another Tipperary win in the Hurling Championship!”

AIT/TUS Sports Department Hall of Fame recipients

Jackie Quinn (soccer)

Tony Dunne (Gaelic football)

Camillus King (camogie)

Kevin O’Sullivan (rugby)

Therese Maher (camogie)

Rory O’Connell (Gaelic football)

Noel Lawlor (multi-sport)

Cora Staunton (LGFA)

Jack Cooney (Gaelic football)

John Caulfield (soccer)

Richard O’Hara