The Quiet Man of Ardfert
By David Kissane
Pat Maguire (left) with Patrick O'Riordan and Mikey O'Riordan in Leopardstown in 2002 at the international cross country championships.
Many people in St Brendan’s AC may not be aware that the famous film The Quiet Man had its genesis just a mere thirty kilometres away from Ardfert. The story of the same name on which the John Ford film starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara is based was written by Maurice Walsh, born near Lisselton Cross in 1879. His house is still there and a plaque reminds us that this prolific writer, who penned twenty novels, hailed from there. The story was inspired by a man called Paddy Bawn Enright who lived further up in Lisselton and worked on the Walsh farm. In the story, the character of Paddy Bawn Enright was called Shawn Kelvin, a young man returned from America, who was a quiet man, under middle size, with strong shoulders and deep-set blue eyes. He had been a boxer as an emigrant but was loathe to talk about that side of his career. He just wanted a quiet life.
Our paish here on the edge of the Atlantic has its own quiet man. And as well as being an athlete he was a boxer too. That man is Pat Maguire. He is the quiet man of Ardfert.
Patie as he is known to all his neighbours was born and raised in Ardfert. He became involved in athletics at a young age and joined St John’s AC Tralee, it being the nearest athletic club to Ardfert. Pat began running in 1967. That year began with one organisation for athletics in Kerry and ended with two. Broadly speaking, North Kerry (BLE) and South Kerry (NACA) were under different athletic bodies and would be until the new millennium when the two organisations happily became one at national level and in Kerry. Ardfert had the distinction of staging the first ever BLE event when the carnival committee hosted a road race from Tralee to Ardfert in 1967.
From round 1967 Pat and his neighbours Dan Murphy, Hugh Murphy, Patrick O’Riordan, Willie O’Riordan, Liam O’Riordan (brother of Tom), Pat Griffin, Tom McGrath and others were all competing with St John’s AC with success, especially in road and cross country events. Pat had one of his first ever cross country races in the 1967 Kerry junior cross country championships in Ballymacelligott. He was to be county junior cross country champion the next year showing his potential for the first time. In 1969 he moved on to senior level and was sixth in the senior cross country championships held in Castleisland. That race was won by Derry McCarthy (Farranfore AC) over a testing six-mile course while Pat’s near neighbours Pat Griffin and Dan Murphy were second and third, leading St John’s AC to the team title. In 1970 Pat was selected on the Kerry team for the national senior inter-county cross country championships in Thurles, Co Tipperary. Ardfert’s Tom O’Riordan (Donore Harriers) won the individual title over seven and a half miles while Dan Murphy was eight. In fact there were four Ardfert athletes on that Kerry team that came seventh with Patrick O’Riordan also being selected. Also on the team was Paddy O’Connor of London Irish who was to settle in Kilmoyley years later.
The skill of Pat Maguire was in evidence again in March 1970 in the county senior cross country in Killarney when he clinched the silver medal behind rising star Jerry Kiernan of Listowel and just ahead of team mate Patrick O’Riordan. Again the Ardfert men were key to a St John’s AC team victory. Open sports were a big feature of those summers and in 1970 alone there were open sports in Ballyhar, Milltown, Castleisland, Headley’s Bridge, Dingle, Knocknagoshel and the big one in St John’s in Tralee. The field evenings also featured athletic events and Ballyheigue had some top athletes on show that year. In fact Pat Maguire had plenty of inspiration locally as 1970 was an outstanding year for Ardfert athletes as Tom O’Riordan won the national 5000m title in Banteer for the fourth year in a row and Patrick O’Riordan won the Kerry intermediate cross country title in Tralee and led St John’s AC to yet another team victory. Dan Murphy from just down the Tralee Road from Pat was awarded a county sport star award that year, had come second in Spain in a junior international cross country and was on his way to the US on scholarship.
A major event was engineered in the winter of 1970 for Pat Maguire and his Ardfert colleagues. A new club, Ardfert AC was formed, inspired by the success of the local athletes with St John’s AC. They had put the pin to the periwinkle, as Maurice Walsh would say. Pat Maguire was the first registrar. Fr Shine was nominated first president while the chair was taken by Dan Murphy. Joe Duhig was elected secretary and treasurer while the PRO was John Hussey. Seán Spaight and Pat Lawlor who were to join later. The club was to have outstanding success in the years ahead.
The new Ardfert AC fulfilled its hosting duties straightaway and staged the Kerry senior cross country championships in the Cúl Trá (Sandy Lane) near Banna in 1971. Pat Maguire kept up his consistent cross country form by coming in fourth to ensure the bronze team medals for the new club. Pat O’Riordan had one of his most outstanding runs at senior level by clinching the silver medal behind future Olympian Jerry Kiernan in the seven and a half mile course. Incredibly there were 57 athletes in that championship race on the bouncy surface of the Cúl Trá.
Pat Maguire then helped to prepare the sportsfield in Ardfert as the club also staged the county novice track and field championships in May where Hugh Murphy, brother of Dan, was top athlete on the day. By then Dan Murphy had taken up a scholarship in Washington State University after a string of impressive victories. The Ardfert new generation girls also made a big impact on home soil with Martina McGrath, Máiréad Murphy, Bríd Kavanagh, Maura Kavanagh, Mary McCarthy and Marion Stack doing well in the juvenile races while in the boys’ events John Crowley, Frank Courtney, Tom Lawlor, Pat Courtney, Tim Crowley, Brendan McGrath, Anthony Carmody and Pat Kearney were in the medals. The inspiring of young athletes was continued by Pat and the club later with Margaret and Eileen Lawlor making the athletics podium at county championship level before going on to win numerous All Ireland titles with the Kerry ladies’ football team.
Pat and the new Ardfert AC club was involved in the cross country league which was popular that autumn. It was held over three legs in Tralee, Castleisland and Farranfore and Pat was a key athlete in those races and actually won the second leg of the series.
The following year, 1972 saw Pat and club secretary Seán Spaight lay out a fine course in the Cúl Trá for the county junior cross country championships and here Patrick O’Riordan showed the club’s progress by taking the title and leading the club to victory. Again Pat Maguire was selected on the Kerry team for the national senior intercounty cross country championships in January. Pat came sixth, one place behind Patrick O’Riordan in the Kerry senior cross country championships later that month in Ballymacelligott, helping Ardfert AC to the silver medals in a field of 38 runners. This was a great achievement for the new club and the spirit of Pat Maguire and his comrades. He was also active in preparing the sportsfield in Ardfert for the hosting of the Kerry senior championships in June. For the first time, women were comprehensively catered for with Patricia Deenihan starring (sister of Jimmy Deenihan who had huge success in athletics in those years before concentrating on football).
Success for Ardfert AC continued in 1973 when Pat Maguire again lined out for the county senior cross country in Farranfore where Patrick O’Riordan came a brilliant second to Derry McCarthy of Farranfore AC. Pat Maguire finished in ninth position. There is the iconic photo with the athletes bathing in a pool of water after the race and Pat with his distinctive hooped singlet is splashing Patrick O’Riordan with devilment. A year later he returned to top form and took the bronze medal in the 1974 county senior cross country in Scartaglin. He then capitalised on his fitness in a county road league on home ground in Ardfert when he came second to the consistent Derry McCarthy.
Among Pat’s achievements in his final years as an athlete were his selection once again on the Kerry team for the national intercounties cross country championships in Roscrea in 1975. Pat helped a strong Kerry team to an excellent fifth position. It was yet another existential statement by the Ardfert man. This was in a year that saw the county road championship being cancelled in April due to the fuel shortage but a host of open sports did go ahead in Kerry later that glorious summer.
That year of 1975 was memorable for Pat Maguire as he lined out at centre field for the Ardfert team that won the county senior hurling championship. That was one of the reasons why track and field during the summer was not an option for the Ardfert athletes as concentration on the sliotar was fundamental. Pat used the gifts for each season that were allocated to him and there is a season for everything.
The favourite training routes for Pat and his colleagues included the run from the entrance (now the prom) in Banna to the Black Rock and back. Sometimes over the amber-brown stones if the tide was in. Footloose and unfettered. This would normally be done in preparation for cross country in mid-winter under the pre-dawn sky with Kerry Head hardly visible…it wasn’t fashionable to be seen training in those days! Warm-ups were not an accepted custom…out of the car and hell for leather. There was something wonderful in the way Pat Maguire ran in those training sessions. The four mile circuit of Liscahane was a good road tester. The Banna-Barrow five miles with the stretch of soft Carrahane sand was a speciality. Some ancient impulse impelled me to run that course on a Sunday morning with Pat and his colleagues one time. The pace was hot and I couldn’t keep up and got lost and was very late for dinner! Times now endless and exotic on the recall.
One of Pat Maguire’s last cross country races was in the county senior championships of 1976 in Farranfore when he came home in ninth position. The race was won by Dan Murphy who had returned from the US. Later Ardfert AC won the Kerry ten mile road championship in Tralee, the club’s first championship win. New athletes like Willie O’Riordan continued the road and cross country culture for Ardfert as Pat Maguire focused on hurling from then on. The evening of his athletic life had come.
Pat Maguire had other attributes that entitled him to local fame. In the mid 1970s he was elected “Mayor of Ardfert” by the carnival committee for his fundraising work. The carnivals were a social phenomenon in those years and funded the local GAA clubs and organisations. Pat and his supporters roamed the North West Kerry area tirelessly over the summer selling the lines that were counted as votes. Victory was his and he became part of local folklore in his native place, just like Maurice Walsh’s Quiet Man.
A favourite pastime of Pat was pool. Pool competitions were all the rage in pubs in the 1970s and he discovered that his skill level in this sport was high. True to form he had a methodical approach to the pool table with that inner vision which allowed him to be calm and smooth in his play. His friend and colleague in Ardfert AC, Seán Spaight had a different style, more of a Hurricane Higgins. He could attack the table like a sídhe gaoithe and scatter balls in all directions, hoping they would find a hole somewhere. Not so with Pat Maguire…he won a major pool tournament in his favourite pub, Joe O’Sullivan’s to a packed house in the mid 1970s with grace and style. The win conferred huge local status on the Ardfert man and he quietly shrugged it off. Master of his task. A gentleman.
Trips to ploughing matches and All Irelands are well remembered by Pat. The Kerry win of 1997 was especially treasured as was the visit to the International Cross Country Championships in Dublin in the 1990s. His assessment of these events in Barry’s Hotel afterwards was a pleasure to experience as Pat has a keen eye for performance in all sports. There were nights of music and enjoyment in Ballyroe Hotel and at the Rose of Tralee. Cups of tea with his friend Brendan Griffin up the road. The quiet trips to Banna in his car and chats after mass in Ardfert. Stories read about Halberg and Viren.
And of course there is the key comparison to The Quiet Man. Pat Maguire was a boxer. His training premises was in his workplace up the road in Denis Griffin’s shed. A ladder was put up across the roof of the shed some twenty feet off the floor. Pat and his colleagues climbed up and hung on to the horizontal ladder rungs and hand-walked till they reached the other wall. Sometimes they attached weights to their legs to increase the input! Pat boxed in the county and provincial championships with success, making his an all-round sportsman.
As Pat Maguire relaxes these days, he can feel a sense of great pride in the memories of his sporting prowess in those idyllic days. He has a story to tell and the distant days of the 1970s are just a story away. The elation of the run lingers. His quiet personality is never at cross purposes with the world he has inhabited for seven decades. His contribution to athletics in Ardfert should not be forgotten. It was a vital link in the history of the village’s sporting history, between the landlord-organised sports of the nineteenth century and the modern St Brendan’s AC. Injury interrupted his chances of running as a master, but he is a constant supporter of the club which succeeded Ardfert AC. Local heroes should not be overlooked and the present generation of sportspeople can learn well from Pat’s achievements and from the achievements of his colleagues. The open sports, the road leagues, the cross country leagues, the founding of a club, the hosting of county events and the sowing of athletics on new ground. The milage and the memories. Part of Kerry and Ardfert athletics folklore.
To quote Maurice Walsh again, The play is over, friends and the curtain is down on the era that Pat Maguire will talk about when we can go to visit him again. But he will remind us Step on the stage if you like. Then we will see again the small smile of one, who has seen what he looked for, come to pass.
Our paish here on the edge of the Atlantic has its own quiet man. And as well as being an athlete he was a boxer too. That man is Pat Maguire. He is the quiet man of Ardfert.
Patie as he is known to all his neighbours was born and raised in Ardfert. He became involved in athletics at a young age and joined St John’s AC Tralee, it being the nearest athletic club to Ardfert. Pat began running in 1967. That year began with one organisation for athletics in Kerry and ended with two. Broadly speaking, North Kerry (BLE) and South Kerry (NACA) were under different athletic bodies and would be until the new millennium when the two organisations happily became one at national level and in Kerry. Ardfert had the distinction of staging the first ever BLE event when the carnival committee hosted a road race from Tralee to Ardfert in 1967.
From round 1967 Pat and his neighbours Dan Murphy, Hugh Murphy, Patrick O’Riordan, Willie O’Riordan, Liam O’Riordan (brother of Tom), Pat Griffin, Tom McGrath and others were all competing with St John’s AC with success, especially in road and cross country events. Pat had one of his first ever cross country races in the 1967 Kerry junior cross country championships in Ballymacelligott. He was to be county junior cross country champion the next year showing his potential for the first time. In 1969 he moved on to senior level and was sixth in the senior cross country championships held in Castleisland. That race was won by Derry McCarthy (Farranfore AC) over a testing six-mile course while Pat’s near neighbours Pat Griffin and Dan Murphy were second and third, leading St John’s AC to the team title. In 1970 Pat was selected on the Kerry team for the national senior inter-county cross country championships in Thurles, Co Tipperary. Ardfert’s Tom O’Riordan (Donore Harriers) won the individual title over seven and a half miles while Dan Murphy was eight. In fact there were four Ardfert athletes on that Kerry team that came seventh with Patrick O’Riordan also being selected. Also on the team was Paddy O’Connor of London Irish who was to settle in Kilmoyley years later.
The skill of Pat Maguire was in evidence again in March 1970 in the county senior cross country in Killarney when he clinched the silver medal behind rising star Jerry Kiernan of Listowel and just ahead of team mate Patrick O’Riordan. Again the Ardfert men were key to a St John’s AC team victory. Open sports were a big feature of those summers and in 1970 alone there were open sports in Ballyhar, Milltown, Castleisland, Headley’s Bridge, Dingle, Knocknagoshel and the big one in St John’s in Tralee. The field evenings also featured athletic events and Ballyheigue had some top athletes on show that year. In fact Pat Maguire had plenty of inspiration locally as 1970 was an outstanding year for Ardfert athletes as Tom O’Riordan won the national 5000m title in Banteer for the fourth year in a row and Patrick O’Riordan won the Kerry intermediate cross country title in Tralee and led St John’s AC to yet another team victory. Dan Murphy from just down the Tralee Road from Pat was awarded a county sport star award that year, had come second in Spain in a junior international cross country and was on his way to the US on scholarship.
A major event was engineered in the winter of 1970 for Pat Maguire and his Ardfert colleagues. A new club, Ardfert AC was formed, inspired by the success of the local athletes with St John’s AC. They had put the pin to the periwinkle, as Maurice Walsh would say. Pat Maguire was the first registrar. Fr Shine was nominated first president while the chair was taken by Dan Murphy. Joe Duhig was elected secretary and treasurer while the PRO was John Hussey. Seán Spaight and Pat Lawlor who were to join later. The club was to have outstanding success in the years ahead.
The new Ardfert AC fulfilled its hosting duties straightaway and staged the Kerry senior cross country championships in the Cúl Trá (Sandy Lane) near Banna in 1971. Pat Maguire kept up his consistent cross country form by coming in fourth to ensure the bronze team medals for the new club. Pat O’Riordan had one of his most outstanding runs at senior level by clinching the silver medal behind future Olympian Jerry Kiernan in the seven and a half mile course. Incredibly there were 57 athletes in that championship race on the bouncy surface of the Cúl Trá.
Pat Maguire then helped to prepare the sportsfield in Ardfert as the club also staged the county novice track and field championships in May where Hugh Murphy, brother of Dan, was top athlete on the day. By then Dan Murphy had taken up a scholarship in Washington State University after a string of impressive victories. The Ardfert new generation girls also made a big impact on home soil with Martina McGrath, Máiréad Murphy, Bríd Kavanagh, Maura Kavanagh, Mary McCarthy and Marion Stack doing well in the juvenile races while in the boys’ events John Crowley, Frank Courtney, Tom Lawlor, Pat Courtney, Tim Crowley, Brendan McGrath, Anthony Carmody and Pat Kearney were in the medals. The inspiring of young athletes was continued by Pat and the club later with Margaret and Eileen Lawlor making the athletics podium at county championship level before going on to win numerous All Ireland titles with the Kerry ladies’ football team.
Pat and the new Ardfert AC club was involved in the cross country league which was popular that autumn. It was held over three legs in Tralee, Castleisland and Farranfore and Pat was a key athlete in those races and actually won the second leg of the series.
The following year, 1972 saw Pat and club secretary Seán Spaight lay out a fine course in the Cúl Trá for the county junior cross country championships and here Patrick O’Riordan showed the club’s progress by taking the title and leading the club to victory. Again Pat Maguire was selected on the Kerry team for the national senior intercounty cross country championships in January. Pat came sixth, one place behind Patrick O’Riordan in the Kerry senior cross country championships later that month in Ballymacelligott, helping Ardfert AC to the silver medals in a field of 38 runners. This was a great achievement for the new club and the spirit of Pat Maguire and his comrades. He was also active in preparing the sportsfield in Ardfert for the hosting of the Kerry senior championships in June. For the first time, women were comprehensively catered for with Patricia Deenihan starring (sister of Jimmy Deenihan who had huge success in athletics in those years before concentrating on football).
Success for Ardfert AC continued in 1973 when Pat Maguire again lined out for the county senior cross country in Farranfore where Patrick O’Riordan came a brilliant second to Derry McCarthy of Farranfore AC. Pat Maguire finished in ninth position. There is the iconic photo with the athletes bathing in a pool of water after the race and Pat with his distinctive hooped singlet is splashing Patrick O’Riordan with devilment. A year later he returned to top form and took the bronze medal in the 1974 county senior cross country in Scartaglin. He then capitalised on his fitness in a county road league on home ground in Ardfert when he came second to the consistent Derry McCarthy.
Among Pat’s achievements in his final years as an athlete were his selection once again on the Kerry team for the national intercounties cross country championships in Roscrea in 1975. Pat helped a strong Kerry team to an excellent fifth position. It was yet another existential statement by the Ardfert man. This was in a year that saw the county road championship being cancelled in April due to the fuel shortage but a host of open sports did go ahead in Kerry later that glorious summer.
That year of 1975 was memorable for Pat Maguire as he lined out at centre field for the Ardfert team that won the county senior hurling championship. That was one of the reasons why track and field during the summer was not an option for the Ardfert athletes as concentration on the sliotar was fundamental. Pat used the gifts for each season that were allocated to him and there is a season for everything.
The favourite training routes for Pat and his colleagues included the run from the entrance (now the prom) in Banna to the Black Rock and back. Sometimes over the amber-brown stones if the tide was in. Footloose and unfettered. This would normally be done in preparation for cross country in mid-winter under the pre-dawn sky with Kerry Head hardly visible…it wasn’t fashionable to be seen training in those days! Warm-ups were not an accepted custom…out of the car and hell for leather. There was something wonderful in the way Pat Maguire ran in those training sessions. The four mile circuit of Liscahane was a good road tester. The Banna-Barrow five miles with the stretch of soft Carrahane sand was a speciality. Some ancient impulse impelled me to run that course on a Sunday morning with Pat and his colleagues one time. The pace was hot and I couldn’t keep up and got lost and was very late for dinner! Times now endless and exotic on the recall.
One of Pat Maguire’s last cross country races was in the county senior championships of 1976 in Farranfore when he came home in ninth position. The race was won by Dan Murphy who had returned from the US. Later Ardfert AC won the Kerry ten mile road championship in Tralee, the club’s first championship win. New athletes like Willie O’Riordan continued the road and cross country culture for Ardfert as Pat Maguire focused on hurling from then on. The evening of his athletic life had come.
Pat Maguire had other attributes that entitled him to local fame. In the mid 1970s he was elected “Mayor of Ardfert” by the carnival committee for his fundraising work. The carnivals were a social phenomenon in those years and funded the local GAA clubs and organisations. Pat and his supporters roamed the North West Kerry area tirelessly over the summer selling the lines that were counted as votes. Victory was his and he became part of local folklore in his native place, just like Maurice Walsh’s Quiet Man.
A favourite pastime of Pat was pool. Pool competitions were all the rage in pubs in the 1970s and he discovered that his skill level in this sport was high. True to form he had a methodical approach to the pool table with that inner vision which allowed him to be calm and smooth in his play. His friend and colleague in Ardfert AC, Seán Spaight had a different style, more of a Hurricane Higgins. He could attack the table like a sídhe gaoithe and scatter balls in all directions, hoping they would find a hole somewhere. Not so with Pat Maguire…he won a major pool tournament in his favourite pub, Joe O’Sullivan’s to a packed house in the mid 1970s with grace and style. The win conferred huge local status on the Ardfert man and he quietly shrugged it off. Master of his task. A gentleman.
Trips to ploughing matches and All Irelands are well remembered by Pat. The Kerry win of 1997 was especially treasured as was the visit to the International Cross Country Championships in Dublin in the 1990s. His assessment of these events in Barry’s Hotel afterwards was a pleasure to experience as Pat has a keen eye for performance in all sports. There were nights of music and enjoyment in Ballyroe Hotel and at the Rose of Tralee. Cups of tea with his friend Brendan Griffin up the road. The quiet trips to Banna in his car and chats after mass in Ardfert. Stories read about Halberg and Viren.
And of course there is the key comparison to The Quiet Man. Pat Maguire was a boxer. His training premises was in his workplace up the road in Denis Griffin’s shed. A ladder was put up across the roof of the shed some twenty feet off the floor. Pat and his colleagues climbed up and hung on to the horizontal ladder rungs and hand-walked till they reached the other wall. Sometimes they attached weights to their legs to increase the input! Pat boxed in the county and provincial championships with success, making his an all-round sportsman.
As Pat Maguire relaxes these days, he can feel a sense of great pride in the memories of his sporting prowess in those idyllic days. He has a story to tell and the distant days of the 1970s are just a story away. The elation of the run lingers. His quiet personality is never at cross purposes with the world he has inhabited for seven decades. His contribution to athletics in Ardfert should not be forgotten. It was a vital link in the history of the village’s sporting history, between the landlord-organised sports of the nineteenth century and the modern St Brendan’s AC. Injury interrupted his chances of running as a master, but he is a constant supporter of the club which succeeded Ardfert AC. Local heroes should not be overlooked and the present generation of sportspeople can learn well from Pat’s achievements and from the achievements of his colleagues. The open sports, the road leagues, the cross country leagues, the founding of a club, the hosting of county events and the sowing of athletics on new ground. The milage and the memories. Part of Kerry and Ardfert athletics folklore.
To quote Maurice Walsh again, The play is over, friends and the curtain is down on the era that Pat Maguire will talk about when we can go to visit him again. But he will remind us Step on the stage if you like. Then we will see again the small smile of one, who has seen what he looked for, come to pass.
