The tragic news when it broke last Friday morning that Jim 'Tiger' Kiely of Abbeyside and Ballinacourty fame had crossed the Great Divide was received with virtual disbelief. Only in his 53rd year, "Tiger" will be remembered as one of the great dual club players of his generation, and for those of us who knew and befriended him he will be remembered too for the kind and inoffensive human being that he was.
He won many championship honours with the Abbeyside and Ballincourty sister clubs, including three senior football medals when County ruled supreme in 1978, 1979 and 1981. In fact he was the heroic match winner in that '79 decider against Ferrybank (1-12 to 1-11) when rifling over what proved to be the match winning point.
For me however it is his hurling skills that I will remember most, skills that were good enough to have taken him to the highest inter county level had not personal, and somewhat tragic, circumstances ordained otherwise.
The first of his many championship medals haul came in 1974 when it was on the winning Under 14 hurling and football club teams, and in 1973 he captained Abbeyside's Under 16 hurlers to county final victory as well as playing a starring role on the winning football team in that same grade. He was a stellar member of Abbeyside's minor winning double hurling and football teams of 1976, and three years later won West and county Under 21 football honours.
"Tiger" of course was bred in the pink in a GAA context. His late father was the legendary "white haired" John Kiely who will always be revered as a member of Waterford's 1959 All-Ireland hurling final team. He lived also to see his own son, Willie John, make a big name for himself on the soccer fields, and having spent a successful sojourn in Scotland Willie John returned home and is now the most prolific scoring forward on the books of Waterford United.
Life itself wasn't always plain sailing for "Tiger. In truth it had more downs than ups, and was literally strewn with pitfalls of every kind. That cannot, and does not, take however from the massive talent he was as both a hurler and a footballer, with that talent always being matched by his exemplary sportsmanship.
For me personally it was my privilege to have known and befriended "Tiger" for a long as a I did.
His memory will live with me for as long as I live myself.
Abbeyside/ Ballincourty gave him a splendid final send off after the 12 noon Mass in St. Mary's Parish Church kin Dungarvan last Sunday. Club members, many of them former playing colleagues of "Tiger", formed the guard of honour, the coffin was draped in the colours of both "sister clubs", and chairman Tony Mansfield delivered a magnificent graveside oration in which he retraced "Tiger's" glittering club career.
To his wife Helen, his son Willie John, his daughters Angelina, Nicolas, Sarah and Siobhain, his mother Biddy Kiely, his brother Tom, sisters Jacqueline, Evelyn and Anne, and all the other members of the extended Kiely family our sincerest sympathy is extended. Go neine Dia trocaire ar a anam dilis.

Courtesy of the Waterford News & Star
15th March 2011 Tweet

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