MANY tributes have been paid to Sean O Siochin, the GAA's former director general died yesterday at the age of 82.

GAA president Jack Boothman said that O Siochin would be forever remembered as "one of the great Irishmen of this century". Few had contributed as much to the GAA and Irish culture and few commanded such widespread respect and admiration. The GAA owed him a huge debt for his selfless contribution and leadership.

The GAA's president elect, Joe McDonagh, said O Siochin had been a tremendous director general and a very talented man. He had a very outgoing personality which assisted him enormously in his work.

"In the days before public relations, he was the GAA's PR man and communicated with ordinary members in the days when presidents didn't mix as much. He had a tremendous rapport with players, which I remember from my own playing days, and he steered the GAA through a very exciting period after the publication of the Commission Report in the early seventies."

His successor as director general Liam Mulvihill, said that Siochin was an inpirational figure and an icon of the GAA who was universally revered. "He had an extraordinary intellect and ability a gregarious personality, ready wit, a love of life and a commitment to the GAA that was infectious."

Sean O Siochin was born on March 24th, 1914, at Cill na Martra, near Macroom in West Cork, where his father ran a small grocery business. He played hurling and football for Macroom and won a Cork senior championship medal in 1931. He subsequently played for the Cork senior football team and for Munster in the Railway Cup.

He began his professional career as a National School teacher and moved to Dublin in 1935, where he taught for 11 years. He joined the Clann na Gael GAA club, winning a Dublin senior football championship medal in 1936. He captained Dublin in the Leinster championship a year later, but declared for Cork again in 1938 and continued to play for them until his retirement in 1941.

He had become well known nationally as a ballad singer during this period and did some broadcasts for Radio Eireann on Donagh McDonagh's popular ballad programme, `Ireland is Singing'. In later years he sang on `Round the Fire', a programme of Irish ballads and music, and, in the 1950s, on `Balladmakers' Saturday Night'.

He toured the United States on four occasions with Irish singers and was also a member of the Dublin Grand Opera Society. An excellent baritone, he sang with Joan Hammond in Mozart's "The Magic Flute" in 1943 - rehearsals caused him to miss his native Cork's All Ireland hurling final win over Antrim that year.

O Siochin's career as a GAA official began in 1946 when he filled a vacancy for assistant secretary, resigning from his teaching post to work full time with the association. He was elected general secretary in 1964, succeeding Padraig O Caoimh. The title was changed to director general in 1972, O Siochin retaining the post until his retirement in 1979.

He was not interested in party politics, but in 1971 organised a "GAA Northern Relief Day" to identify the GAA in a positive and practical way with the relief of distress which had resulted from internment and more than two years of disturbances in Northern Ireland. Every county was asked to organise as many games as possible on that day, October 3rd, with all gate receipts being disbursed from Croke Park, with the help of county board officers in the six counties, to families in need.

He became involved in the Christian Family Movement, a movement of parents who visited each other's homes for discussions and bible readings. Speaking at a meeting of that movement in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, in 1970, he said some of those present, and all of their parents, were "reared in the old faith. They never questioned anything, they lived in those beliefs and consequently were very staunch Catholics."

This had changed in the previous 10 years and now everybody was questioning everything. This "disease" was spreading and consequently a difficulty for "parents in particular" had arisen.

Although he retired as director general in 1979, O Siochain continued to work for the GAA and was appointed director of fund raising for the new Ceannarus. He completed his work in that capacity in 1982, but continued to attend games up until very recently.

O Siochain is survived by his wife Caitlin, sons Donal and Ronan and daughters Orla, Aisling, Fiona and Blaithin.