Long time Kerry football supporter and secretary of the New York Kerry football club Joan Henchy from Tarbert, Co. Kerry will be the guest of honor at the club's victory dance in the Astoria Manor in Queens on Saturday, January 31. Henchy, actively involved with the club since 1999, told the Irish Voice she is "honored and delighted" to have been chosen as the honoree. Henchy, who has acted as club secretary for the past seven years, has been a staunch Kerry football supporter all her life. She is following in her father's footsteps. Dan Kiely, a Kerry county councilor, while living in the U.S. in the 1960s was instrumental in setting up the Kerry junior football club and after returning to Tarbert in 1968. Henchy said she feels proud to be able to carry on the tradition of her father by being so strongly involved with her county football association in her adopted country. "It's an honor to be honored by the Kerry Football Club. It's great that there is still a member of the Kiely family still involved in the club over 40 years later," she said. Henchy's father and her two aunts will travel from Kerry to be with her on the night. Henchy, who has been actively involved in the fight for legalization for the Irish undocumented in the U.S., is hopeful that her two daughters, Tara, 17 and Shauna, 13, will continue to have as much passion for their home team in New York as their mother when they grow older. Henchy's husband, Brendan from Liselton in Co. Kerry, is the current manager of the Kerry junior team in New York. The husband and wife team, who left Kerry together in 1985 to find a better life for themselves in New York, are both delegates for the club to the GAA, and Joan is also the New York registrar for the fifth year in a row. Joan, a qualified recreational therapist to the elderly, is well known and respected among the Irish community in the Bronx and Yonkers for her outstanding charitable work. Henchy will share her night with senior player of the year Shane Clifford, junior player of the year Mike Carmody and clubman of the year Owen Moriarty. Tickets are $85. Call 201-928-1687. To place a journal ad call Brendan Henchy at 914-584-2665.
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