Slava Ukraini! Refugee Vlad is an Offaly county minor champion
SIXTEEN-year-old Ukrainian refugee Vlad Biriuk is this evening celebrating being part of the Tullamore panel which has lifted the Offaly minor football title.
The Tullamore College student knew nothing about the GAA before his arrival in Ireland with his mother and sister but within a few months he was integrated into the local club.
“We just only got to know [Gaelic football] when we came. I was playing soccer but not such this kind of sport,” said Vlad.
He was speaking after Tullamore won the county minor title with a two-point victory over Kilcormac-Killoughey.
“Yes of course. They are my team," he said, adding that he would have loved to have taken to the pitch himself during the match.
"I wanted to play [today] but I'm still very happy that we won. One team gets first place and it is very good news. I am very happy and everyone from my team is very happy.”
Vlad came to Ireland from a small town in Sumy province, northeast Ukraine, with his mother Inna and sister Viktoria in April.
Inna said she is very happy in Tullamore and was proud of her son's involvement with the GAA club.
“The town of Tullamore is very beautiful. It has some special unique beauty,” she said.
Her husband Illya has stayed behind in Ukraine and the family miss him. However, they are in regular contact and Inna speaks often to him.
“Every day. Breakfast, supper, dinner, every time,” she said. “My husband is the best man.”
The couple ran their own logistics company together before the Russian invasion and they watch events in their home country closely.
Vlad told the Tullamore Tribune: “I hear... the news from my friends and from my family. They say it's very bad news because every single time [Russia] launch more and more rockets and it is very tense, even to know [where] you will be tomorrow.”
They hope to return to Ukraine one day but for the moment, they are enjoying Vlad's sporting triumph in his adopted town.
The Tullamore coaches Ken Furlong, Mervyn Griffin, John Keane and Benny O'Brien were impressed with Vlad's dedication since he joined the panel in the summer and are happy he was part of the journey to the club's 30th county minor football title.
Or as Tullamore clubman Johnno Kinahan put it after Vlad sat down with his new friends for the post-match pizza in the GAA Centre: “There won't be a cow milked in Ukraine tonight!”