HE has five All-Ireland senior medals, eight Munster championship wins and three national league titles to his credit.
He has won under 21, intermediate and junior football titles, a Kerry club championship and several O’Donoghue Cup medals and he was widely regarded as one of the best defenders in the game during his 13-years of service in a Kerry jersey.
He stole the show when winning the high-profile Dancing With The Stars on TV and he recently teamed up with his London-based cousin, Michael O’Donoghue, to launch a very innovative and well received online business, AOM Fitness.
Out of the limelight he is a very respected member of An Garda Siochana, stationed in Tralee, and he is never slow making himself available to help out community groups or voluntary organisations who might need somebody with a big profile to guide them in the right direction.
But all of those life achievements pale into insignificance for the hugely popular Aidan O’Mahony who has gone on record in recent days to stress that the most important thing in his life is not football, dancing or fitness – it’s family.
The 37-year old Rathmore star was thrilled to be asked to feature on a guest panel for a debate at the World Meeting of Families in the RDS during the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland. On stage before close on 2,000 people, he joined Olive Foley, widow of the late Ireland and Munster rugby hero Anthony, Ireland rugby legend Ronan O’Gara and Dominican priest, Fr Philip Mulryne, who quit life as a professional footballer, once on the books of Manchester United, to follow his vocation.
The WMOF organisers wanted to focus on the links between family and sport and they deemed Aidan, who is married to Denise with a 17-month-old daughter, Lucia, to be the perfect guest. And he was more than happy to accept the offer.
“The GAA is always a great example of a family in sport, especially in Kerry. I grew up during the Golden Years and ever since then I have seen people giving their lives to the clubs, lining pitches, feeding people, constantly volunteering and helping in any way they could. That’s a real family,” Aidan told KillarneyToday.com.
“When it comes down to it, it’s all about your club and your county – that’s your sporting family. The club gives you a bond with the people you grew up with,” he said.
“You go to all their weddings and they go to yours and I always say they are the people that will carry you to your grave and isn’t that a fantastic thing.”
Aidan said the World Meeting of Families discussion was highly-charged and emotional, particularly when Olive Foley addressed the crowd and told how, following the sudden death of her husband, she was devastated but she soon felt the arms of the sporting world around her and her family. Ronan O’Gara was reduced to tears as she spoke and Aidan said it was a very poignant and emotional occasion,
“It has been an absolute privilege and honour for me to line out with my club family and my Kerry team family but that said, I have always felt that sense of responsibility that comes with wearing the jersey on your back,” said Aidan.
“I have always said it and I said it again at the World Meeting of Families: It’s not about medals – it’s about memories.”
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