THE revamped Carbery GAA website was a vital necessity, according to Donal McCarthy, with improved accessibility and mobile compatibility at the heart of the redevelopment.

Providing information quickly and making the site – carberygaa.ie – more user-friendly were the key aims behind the overhaul.

‘The Carbery website has been there for the last ten or 12 years. Over the past six months, we have looked at where we can make it better. It previously didn’t give what we were looking for going forward,’ McCarthy told The Southern Star.

‘One thing with a website is that it needs to be mobile-friendly. You need it to be accessible and people need to get information fairly fast.

‘We may need to make more improvements but at least now it’s mobile-friendly and accessible for everybody.

‘In other sports, you can see their websites and learn from them. People know when fixtures are on and where games are being played. That’s the way to go.’

One of the key new additions is the ‘Club Finder’ feature, which allows users to click on any club in the Carbery division. Each club page includes contact details, website links, upcoming fixtures and recent results.

‘If you go into a club on the site, say O’Donovan Rossa, you can see all Carbery games involving O’Donovan Rossa over the next number of weeks. You don’t have to be trawling through the website. The same applies for all 26 clubs,’ explained the Dohenys clubman.

The site also places a stronger focus on promoting divisional teams and achievements.

‘When you go into the news and media section, it brings up what is happening in the Carbery division. For instance, the Carbery U15 hurlers beating Glen Rovers and Blackrock. Stories like that are getting prominent coverage.

‘For the players involved and their management teams, it’s important that we benefit from all that as a division.’

The home page features a graphic recognising leading Carbery players, including inter-county footballers Ruairi Deane (Bantry Blues) and Brian Hurley (Castlehaven), former Cork hurler Luke Meade (Newcestown) and Newcestown’s David Buckley following the club’s Senior A county championship double in 2023.

As well as listing member clubs’ contact details, the website also includes contact information for all members of the Carbery board.

‘That feature is great for helping the media. The Southern Star does fantastic work and if they want to get a contact for somebody, they don’t have to be hunting all over the place. They can go into the contacts section and find who they’re looking for. That applies whether they are looking for a club secretary, chairman or whoever it may be,’ McCarthy added.

While the redevelopment is close to completion, further additions and improvements are still planned ahead of the championship season in July.

‘It’s nearly finished and we are monitoring it for any problems that could come up. We will change it as we go along.

‘It was a whole team effort and there was great co-operation from everyone. I took on the project last October to spearhead it.

‘It’s there now and it’s for everybody – fans, players and the media. One of the challenges is keeping it updated, but we will make a big effort to keep it fresh going forward,’ McCarthy said.