Sucide prevention campaign launched

GAA star Sean Og O'hAilpin today launched a campaign to help young people suffering from anxiety or harbouring suicidal thoughts…

GAA star Sean Og O'hAilpin today launched a campaign to help young people suffering from anxiety or harbouring suicidal thoughts.

The Cork legend is backing Please Talk campaign which was set up at University College Dublin (UCD) after five students took their own lives since last August.

He revealed he was speaking from his own experiences of suicide when he told them there is always help out there.

In a moving speech, Sean Og said: "The biggest shock that I got in my life was on the eve of the Munster final in 1999, we were due to play Clare and I got a phone call from the chairman of my local club Na Piarsaigh in Clare Street, Denis O'Neill, and he told me that one of my former teammates Conrad Lynch had passed away.

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"I thought it must have been a car accident. He told me the harsh reality that Conrad had committed suicide and as much as I regretted not doing PE in college, or those All-Ireland finals I had lost. There is something you could do about them, but unfortunately with the loss of Conrad my former teammate I felt so helpless."

O'hAilpin said the biggest regret he had was not asking him how he was feeling during training. "That is probably one of the biggest regrets I ever had, if that teammate had said something, something could have been done about it," he said.

UCD chaplain Tony Coote said the campaign and website www.pleasetalk.ie was set up in the aftermath of five suicides to make UCD's 22,000 students aware there are services and help available.