Patsy Kelleher from Dublin Lions Basketball Club receives the Active South Dublin Volunteer of the Year Award from Mayor Pamela Kearns, Thos McDermott, Head of Active South Dublin, Bryan Malone, Sales and Marketing Manager, The Plaza Hotel and Michael Howley, The Echo
Dublin Lions’ Patsy honoured with volunteer award
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PATSY Kelleher of Dublin Lions has been named as the Active South Dublin volunteer of the year at the Active South Dublin Sports Awards in association with The Echo and South Dublin County Council.
Kelleher is a team manager for five teams in Dublin Lions, including the U18 side that won the National Cup just last month.
Kelleher joined the club after her son began playing for the team 12 years ago, while he no longer plays she remains involved with the club and has become a pivotal part of Dublin Lions behind the scenes.
Not only in the sports scene, Kelleher works in Tallaght Hospital and was starting a midnight shift in the hospital immediately after the awards ceremony held in The Plaza last Thursday evening.
“My son started playing when he was 8 or 9 and I got involved with the club.
‘When he started first we just had an academy and a few teams, mainly out of Moyle Park in Clondalkin. Since then we now have 21 teams right across from U10s up to U18s in the boys and U16s in the girls”
“We started rebuilding our girls side in the club about five years ago and since then we’ve had runners up and all Irelands at U14s level with five of the U16 girls in the national team panel at the minute.
‘We’ve built the girls up and the boys have always been strong and we hope they continue. The club has grown a lot.”
“A lot of what I do is fundraising for the club. You saw in the piece recently in The Echo that we paid €115,000 in halls fees in just 2025 alone.
‘A lot of our work as a community and as volunteers is just fundraising, trying to get enough money so that we can keep the fees down for our members and continue to grow, give our coaches time to coach so our players have the best development possible.”
