The death has taken place of Bertie Coleman - the Galway GAA figure who is credited with instigating the All-Ireland club championships 37 years ago.

The 83-year-old passed away yesterday after being ill for some time, but despite not being in good health he was still attending GAA events in the months leading up to his death. Coleman was president of the Galway County Board at the time of his death, having held a variety of positions with Galway football going back half a century.

A former junior footballer with Galway in the 1950s, Bertie Coleman was a selector on the Galway team which won the three-in-a-row in the mid-1960s and he was still serving as a selector when they lost the controversial 1983 decider to a Dublin side reduced to 12 men.

He left his most significant mark when he successfully proposed the motion for the creation of the AllIreland club championships at Congress in 1970 despite widespread opposition, most notably from Cork.

Coleman persisted and in the end the motion was carried by 92-74. However, his own club, Dunmore, with whom he won a county medal in 1953 and which dominated Galway football in the 1960s, never tasted success in the All-Ireland series.

Beatrice Ní Shé, mother of Páidí Ó Sé, also died yesterday in Tralee Hospital after a long illness. She was 88.