It is paramount in a child’s life, in an adult’s life too, let’s be honest. However, we learn to stop playing and we suffer as a result.

When children meet up and play, synapses in the brain are firing up, pathways are strengthened, and they feel great. They sleep so much more soundly after a good play time.

So, we know how important play is, psychologically, for our children and yet we have very limited pathways for them to organically connect with each other and play in this country. Most avenues of connection are centred, in some way, around being a consumer — shopping centres, and coffee shops.

Anyone parenting a teenager will know the very real challenges of getting them out into the fresh air with friends and off their phones. With the arrival of ubiquitous internet and smartphones, real-life activities are more difficult to get teenagers involved in than ever before.

There is a serious drop-off in girls playing GAA after 15 years of age. We need to fix this. Worryingly, I have observed the collapse of soft skills like small talk. Whenever a teenager feels awkward socially, they will jump on their phone, no small talk required.

When I was young and if I needed to find out the time of the next bus, I’d ask the person standing at the bus stop. In today’s world, that person has headphones in, listening to something, and I have a phone that can answer that question for me. No spontaneous social interaction occurs.

That seems like a small thing. But it is having a corrosive impact on skills children need to develop to feel confident in themselves.

Anxiety is the fear of an unknown future event, the antidote to that is to feel you can manage the future. And if I have no experience of chatting with people, playing with people, winning and losing, and being competitive, and having friends to give me feedback and coaches making me feel valued, is the future more scary or less scary? I think we all know the answer to that question. So play is vital for our children’s development.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently classified teenage girls as the loneliest group in our society. We should all take that very seriously.

I was walking through a school recently and the principal stopped me and said: “Do you hear that noise?” It was the sound of a bustling canteen. She thanked me and told me that until recently the school didn’t have a technology policy, and the canteen had been silent, but after I talked in the school they brought in a policy, the noise was back.

I called this phenomenon ‘the silencing of adolescence’ and we all need to work to make it noisy again.

I love when I’m up at camogie or football with my young daughters and hear all the noise of them chatting together, and practising their kicking and the coaches messing with them and giving them feedback. 

The work of coaches — ordinary, decent people taking time out of their busy lives to have an extraordinary impact on children’s lives.

I have said it before, they are the real heroes in our society. They ensure our children go off into life feeling confident, powerful, and valued.

The Cairn Community Games celebrates its 59th year connecting children through play in this country. It is an incredible initiative that creates an organic way for children to connect with each other from around the country and just play.

I have heard of the community games for many years. I watched the excitement as students went off for a day of sport. The next day they would be in class, excitedly telling everyone about who they met, and where they placed in their activity.

I was chatting to Brian Gregan recently, Brian is one of the most successful Irish runners this country has produced. He is an eight-time Irish champion, and he told me his love for athletics started when he took part in the community games one evening.

He said it was just the fun of meeting everyone and the ability to compete with people from all over Ireland that ignited his life-long passion, he even worked as a volunteer.

My own daughter Lizzy came into the kitchen this week, excited she was playing girls from the community games. The buzz up at the pitches was magnificent as all the children connected and played against each other.

The Cairn Community Games connects thousands of children throughout the country by offering them the opportunity to participate in sporting and cultural competitions. We have never needed the community games more than we do today.

Future champions like Brian Gregan are waiting to have that little spark turned into a fire.

My daughter often says to me getting out of the car heading into training up in Broomfield with her team, St Sylvester’s in Malahide: “Up the Dubs.” I’m at the final stage of grief, acceptance. Play on.