One of the questions I've been asked recently is why did you pick Kilrea for the Spring Camp? Kilrea is a small town up in the far North, situated alongside the River Bann. The answer I give to students is very simply... Kilrea is the birth place for Silat in Ireland !
When I open the first silat club in Ireland, I had just left school, due to a family situation where my father had suffer a heart attack, I took over the family business at 15, and open up the first silat club, when I brought over Guru Jak 17th May 1985 to teach his first seminar. The Silat club in Kilrea was establish and it had around 8 members (two school mates and 6 local lads) and we met every Monday and Thursday in the local School. Guru Jak visit us every 2 to 3 months and to help finance this I along with my sister ran local kiddies discos on a Friday evening and use the money from this to pay for Guru Jak visits to us from UK. I will always be grateful to my family, who always supported me throughout the very difficult stages of helping to introduce Silat to Ireland. My parents hosted Guru Jak in my house, and look after him when I was at work, and he always called them Mum and Dad as he was along way from home and was always look after. My sister throughout the period I live in Kilrea, was always there to help me raise money, or supported me emotionally, and was a rock for me.
People sometimes forget through the 80's and 90's the situation in the North was a extremely trouble times with a civil war basically going on, and all through that time the Kilrea club kept going and was a mixed religion club, which was extremely rare, and never once during its 13 years did ever a cross word or row start in that club. We knew we had something special in silat and from our common goal we kept that spark alive. This spark ended up new clubs in the North and when I move to Dublin I established clubs.
This is why ever two years we honour the birth place of Silat in Ireland, and why I will always be grateful to the support my Late parents and Late sister Sharon give me, my school mates and friends in Kilrea who help me, my long term students in the North who been with me since the beginning and with out these people, there would be probably be no silat in Ireland. I don't mind new students not showing respect to me, for what I did as I given that freely and wanted to, but the sacrifice that others including my family, give so people can now train in Silat should be respected. Some teachers in Ireland like to change history to fit their egos, but fact is fact and without Respect, Tradition and History we do not know our roots and so are like lost boats in the ocean, floating aimlessly.
I wrote this as a mark of respect for my family, if anyone would like more details or like to visit some of the locations where silat took place in Kilrea at the camp or for reference let me know.
