26 January 2021
22 January 2021
Patrick O’Riordan – True Grit by David Kissane
On Friday night Patrick O’Riordan travelled to the St Brendan’s AC AGM. It was his 33rd AGM of the club. Unbroken chain. It was also the shortest distance he ever had to travel to an AGM. About three metres. From his kitchen to his living room. His first zoom AGM. Virtually real.
It is indeed a virtual weekend for the club as the first St Brendan’s AC Virtual 5K is being hosted all weekend. Did mine yesterday morning. Out of bed early, locked and loaded for a decent run. The 1K standard warm-up jog followed by a routine series of Ursulated rotations and twists and turns. Then over to Mr Garmen and off like any sixty seven year-old pretending to be forty. Then as the adrenaline hits home I can hear the theme tune from Chariots of Fire playing in my brain and then Sissel sings Shenandoah. Then a Chopin waltz on the road. Strains of Johnny Cash singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The bare melancholy of the January trees blend with the beautiful presence of imagination and the hope of spring around the corner. There is poetry in my plod, savouring the delicious wonder of the running wander. I have a claw in my paw. Runuary bliss. I am Michelangelo and the Cistine ceiling is taking shape. Sixty seven and in heaven. Mr Garmen bleeps to tell me I am well ahead of schedule with the first two Ks. It’s an out and back course so I turn at 2.5K and bang! There is a counter-play to the perceived second half. A westerly strengthening wind hits me full on from expanding forehead to tapping toe. It’s a brake, a wall, a hindrance, a go-back shout from nature. Now the early wind-assisted pace makes sense. We don’t always notice the wind at our backs. Now I try to swim against Storm Virtual but there goes my hope of a decent performance as breathing and muscles and bones conspire with the wind to teach a humility lesson. The rest is a weak mono-movement. I fall across the finish point a broken runner. Virtually destroyed. When I hear that over 200 runners around the county and beyond supported the Virtual Run, then positivity returns and sure running is only a recreational thing anyway. Now who says that?
It’s a virtual state now. A virtual open sports? A virtual relay run? A virtual decathlon? A virtual track and field championships? There must be an app. A zoom world. People attend meetings in pyjamas. Electronic platforms. Hybrid AGMs. Group cams. Zoom buddies. People bursting in to the background looking for their runners during a live zoom. A cat leaps onto the laptop. Toilets flush in ear-range. Running gear visible on the bookshelf. Strange profile pics. Expleting when you think you’re muted. Gas world since our borders were rebranded by Covid. But it works.
As Patrick O’Riordan zooms out, elected once again as St Brendan’s AC president for another year, he probably passes his medal-holder in the hallway. Medals there stretching back to the days in the mid-1960s when he visited Murphy’s house on the Tralee road. Boxing was the game then. Dan, Hugh and John Murphy along with Patie Maguire were all good at boxing and to get fit, they ran. The fourteen year old Patrick joined them on the runs and was hooked. For a lifetime. The next step was to join St John’s AC in Tralee, the nearest athletic club. Road running and cross country excited Patrick and the other boys and they discovered that other fellas couldn’t keep up with them. The more they trained the luckier they got! In 1968 Patrick collected his first serious medal when he finished second to future Olympian Jerry Kiernan in the county U16 road championships in Listowel. He beat future Kerry football star Jimmy Deenihan that day in a hotly contested race. Patrick went to see the top athletes in the country in the national senior inter-counties and inter-clubs in Mallow that same year and cheered on his neighbour Tom O’Riordan (competing for Donore Harriers and Dublin) to a great victory over Mat Murphy (Rising Sun AC) and Joe O’Keeffe (Civil service AC). Patrick’s attention was equally focused on the junior race where Eddie Leddy (Leitrim) - his brother PJ was 7th in the senior race - had a fine win in a field that was graced with many future stars including Neil Cusack and John Hartnett. He wonders what happened to the pioneering women who were in the intermediate medals that day (there were no senior women): N Bowe (Tipperary), E Mountain (Waterford) and K Curley (Galway)?
Then the first Munster medal came. It was in 1969, the year of the first man on the moon. Patrick’s career went into orbit with a provincial medal achieved as a member of the Kerry U18 bronze medal-winning team in the cross country championships in Dromoland, Co Clare. The race was won by team mate Dan Murphy, ahead of Tony Durack of Clare with Kerry’s Sonny Fennell (Tarbert) in third. Tadgh O’Donoghue (Kenmare) was the next scorer in sixth position followed by Jerry Kiernan and John Galvin (both Listowel) and Patrick in close pursuit. The same year Mallow was the venue for the national championships and Patrick was on the U18 Kerry team that came 4th. By the end of that year, Patrick had recorded his first serious victory at county level when striding home first in a senior five mile handicap race in the Cows’ Lawn in Listowel ahead of team mate Pat Griffin with Donal Crowley in third.
Patrick’s first All Ireland medal came the next year (1970) in Grange, Co Cork when he was a member of the Kerry U20 team that got bronze in the national cross country championships. There were 190 runners in the race including his younger brother Willie. Then to Killarney in March for the Kerry senior cross country championships where he took bronze, and he completed the year with his first county championship cross country win. With a gritty run, now on a success-plateau, he won the Kerry intermediate cross title in Tralee. He enjoyed the celebrations that night in Ardfert and in the course of the post-race chat, the idea of starting a club in Ardfert was floated. Their identity needed to be reprofiled. When the Ardfert athletes woke up the next day, the idea hadn’t gone away.
And so by 1971, Ardfert AC was set up and had a dramatic early achievement when the team came third in the team race at the Munster junior cross country championships in Knockraha, Co Cork. Patrick was second team scorer for Ardfert AC (behind Dan Murphy who won the title for the third time) and Willie O’Riordan was close behind. Then later in the year, the new club hosted the county senior championships in the Cúl Trá in Banna and Patrick O’Riordan collected the silver medal behind Jerry Kiernan and led his club to bronze medals. More celebrations that night for the new club, now airborne although the earlier loss of Dan Murphy to Washington State University was a huge one.
The favourite training course for the Ardfert AC boys was the Banna-Barrow-Carrahane-Banna five mile circuit. Not for the faint-hearted with soft sand, road, dunes and mud in a sickening mixture of torture. Counter reformation stuff. They ran to find out like a painter paints to discover. On cold winter nights when the boys were getting ready to go to Banna, Patrick liked to “warm up” by placing his feet in Mikey O’Riordan’s oven in the Stanley range. Off down then to Banna and dash out of the car and hell for leather down the beach. Pebbles and stones flying off the running shoes if the tide was in. When God created Banna He was showing off. They could feel its feelingness. On one occasion, a man walking the beach in the dark of a November night was frightened out of his wits when he heard heavy breathing and footsteps in the darkness and ran for the dunes to escape from what he thought were the fairies from one of the local forts. Another night the group waited in the car for a bitter north-west shower of hailstones to clear before heading into the razor night. They waited and waited but the shower persisted and in the end came home runless because the Fugitive was on TV and couldn’t be missed. And the heat from the Stanley had worn off the toes. That was the exception that proved the rule because Patrick and his club-mates were ruthless.
Patrick made a dramatic start to 1972 with an inner freedom articulated by running. He won the county U20 (junior) cross country title in the Cúl Trá, leading the Ardfert AC team to gold in the process. Billy White Farranfore AC was in second and Kevin Tangney (Scartaglin) in third. While cross country and road running were the first loves of the Ardfert man, he soon made his mark on the track when racing to bronze in the 1500m later in the 1972 Kerry track and field championships on a misty June day in Ardfert sportsfield.
The next year brought silver in the county senior cross country championships in Farranfore behind the impressive Derry McCarthy (Farranfore AC). Patrick always liked the wrath and naked severity that Scahies offered to the cross country runners. He gloried in its primal muddy otherness. True grit. The following years saw the Ardfert man on the Kerry team for the national cross country championships in Mallow and Roscrea. Patrick’s visit to Mallow in 1974 on the Kerry team was a memorable one. There were atrocious conditions after a week of wind and rain but Tom O’Riordan (third) led the Kerry team to an overall fourth place and they received a special award for the most improved team. Donie Walsh (Leevale AC) and Dessie McGann (Civil Service) took gold and silver in front of Tom O’Riordan. The forever runners. These guys were jiving when the rest of us were learning how to walk. The day was memorable before the race when a Kerry team member was accidentally locked into one of the dressing sheds and was released only minutes before the start. The Ardfert team members and supporters, all six of them, were travelling home in a Morris Minor when a tree fell in front of them. The driver boldly drove on under the falling tree like Evel Knievel and came out safe at the other end.
Then hurling with St Brendan’s took over for Patrick for a number of years. Indeed he had been able to partake of both athletics and hurling up to then. He had already won a county minor hurling championship medal in 1969 when his running career was blossoming. As a competitive defender, he won two county senior hurling championship medals in 1975 and 1986 with a number of other grade medals in between and after.
An expert driver and a lover of cars, one of his favourite machines was a white Ford Capri with which he and others traversed the roads of North Kerry in the summer of life. Spring Shows, ploughing matches, football and hurling matches (not in that order), international cross countries, coursing. Stories to be told.
While Ardfert AC discontinued in the 1980s, Patrick was involved in the formation of the new club, St Brendan’s AC in October 1987 and was elected senior secretary. He went on to serve his time in the county board as treasurer and to lend assistance whenever needed. One of his proudest days in sport was when St Brendan’s AC won the Quill Cup for the first time, closely followed by the club’s top club in Munster award. Still keeping a super(natural) level of fitness, he went on to compete at veteran (master) level and broke new ground with successful appearances as a relay runner, long jumper and high jumper from O35 up to O65 . His consistency in the masters’ long and high jumps at national level is nothing short of phenomenal with gold and silvers by the chestful, the most recent coming in 2018 in Tullamore.
There is always a hint of joie de vivre when Patrick recalls his days in athletics. The famous Kerryman photograph of the athletes washing in a hole of water in Scahies after the county senior cross country championships in 1973 is remembered with humour. His plan to up his raining to two days a week a few years ago was received with amazement by those who train every day. Patrick maintained that a six-day rest period is vital for freshness. His favourite circuit for a run in recent years is his beloved Cúl Tra circuit: from Banna Prom north towards the Black Rock, then right by the lock-gate and onto the Cúl Trá and back by the road. I have ran that course with him (usually behind him) many times. I noticed a few years ago that he got into the habit of bringing his dog, June with him. When I got cheeky and tried to run past him, I swear to God that he had the dog trained to run across me, breaking my stride and ensuring that no passing out was allowed. When June passed on to her doggy heaven, he trained the amiable Abbey to do the same.
Patrick admits that he had very few poor races in his long career as he searches through the layers of the past. He does cite a Cork to Cobh race back in the 1980s as one of the worst. The body didn’t like the questions it was being asked. Any run over five miles was a no-no after that.
Well known far and wide as an athlete, a hurler and as an Atlantic Oils man (he was recruited by its founder Denis Horgan), he also knows every corner of North Kerry and its people and beyond. Conversations with him in his favourite Abbey Tavern, McElligott’s, Kirby’s or Kate Browne’s was always an education in itself (and will be again when normality returns).
And he’s not finished yet! True grit.
18 January 2021
St.Brendan's AC Virtual 5K - 2021
24 December 2020
Christmas Runs Recalled by David Kissane
Did you ever do a duathlon? A starter of a 2K run, followed by a main course of a 10K cycle and completed by a 2K run for dessert. That was my menu today for the first time ever. Inspired by Artur Nowak, the starter 2K went well from Kilmoyley church to the home of the county hurling champions and back. The transition to the bike, however caused problems with cold fingers trying to fasten the helmet and wobbly feet having difficulty finding the pedals. But a good feeling then as cycling is basically running while sitting down! Until I hit the first hill and changed gears in the wrong direction. Quads complaining that this Sunday morning was going down! Andreas had kindly pumped up my tyres beforehand and the bike was trying to take off every time it hit a bump. An airy feeling. Mistook the speed of the bike then on a left-hand bend at Lerrig sportsfield and nearly heard the birds singing “Going Home”. The biggest shock was when I hopped off the bike and tried to run the dessert 2K. No tiramisu here as the two legs buckled like John Wayne coming off a horse after a long day’s ride on the range. Mixture of jelly and sponge as I wobbled to Kilmoyley NS and back. Felt like an old man. Come to think of it, I am an old man.
Forgot to tell my Garmin that I was doing a cycle and left it on running mode. When I press stop at the end there is cheering from the watch and a gold cup comes up on the screen. It thinks that I have broken the world record for the 14K run. How does one apologise to a watch!
“Never again” I hear myself saying but there is something different about this duathlon craic. Maybe just one more time. It’s not every day we make history.
It’s put down as a Christmas experience.
I recall another seasonal experience some forty plus year ago. On a Christmas Eve, it was on a Sunday, the then newly-formed Corca Dhuibhne AC in Dingle organised their first ever road race, a six and a half mile odyssey into ancient Irelandic territory. I had never run on a Christmas eve and of course that was the attraction. A raw Chrismassy day and that curious winter light that Dingle seems to monopolise meant a Celtic aura on the enchanted West Kerry ways. Wasn’t it a Dingle woman who inspired Patrick Kavanagh to write the enchanting Raglan Road that has the line “the enchanted way”. A strong field with future Olympian Peter Maher of Sneem strutting his stuff and the local hero Jonathan Flannery leading out the race in fine form. Around the four mile mark I knew that it wasn’t going to happen for me that day although I seemed to be much younger than I am now. The two iconic Carmody brothers from St John’s AC were running in the race. Brian was up front motoring with his Rolls Royce engine and Paul was passing me out as I mumbled something like “this is tough!” He looked at me and I can remember the words he spoke all those years ago: “Kissane, you have to be tough with it!” That’s a statement that requires no verbal response and then he added: “And Santy is coming tonight!”
John Griffin of St John’s AC won the race. What exciting years he had behind and ahead. He won the battle that day with Peter Maher who was later to run for Canada in the Olympic marathon. Gerard Walsh of Ríocht AC, one of the visionaries who gave Kerry its first tartan track, was third with Brian Carmody and John Lenihan close behind. Máiréad Cotter won the junior women’s event to kickstart a sound career in athletics. I came in eight, just ahead of Paul Carmody who had inspired me to keep going. Santy came early that year, Paul. Pat Griffin coordinated that event for the Kerry county board. A rare Christmas experience as I have never run a Christmas Eve race since, but it ranks with Yuletide subcultures like Indiana Jones, Billy Smart’s Circus, Ben Hur, The Snowman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Selection Boxes.
“That time of year you may in me behold” was how Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 described the fading period of life he was experiencing. The end of his life was like the twilight of a fading day. Such is Christmastime. All cultures have a time of celebrating the turning of the darkest time of the year towards new seasons, new life.
One of the attachments to the Christmas was the Feast Day of St Stephen and was regarded in many countries as the second most important feast day of season. The day celebrated St Stephen who is believed to have been the first Christian martyr. According to tradition he met a gruelling death by stoning around the year 33 AD. What is now celebrated on December 26th has been a public holiday in Ireland since 1871 when the Bank Holiday Act recognised the importance of a tradition that had been popular for hundreds of years.
The connection of the day with the humble wren is well known in Ireland as legend has it that the wren “informed” on the luckless St Stephen while he was on the run. The result of this superstition caused the deaths of thousands of wrens over the years as they were hunted in revenge to be displayed on St Stephen’s Day by groups collecting money. “Going out in the wren” is a custom still observed in places but more understanding times don’t require an innocent bird to be hunted for the occasion.
For those of us who grew up in the 1960s the “Wren’s Day” was almost equal to Christmas Day. Going out in the wren or having troops of wrenboys (rarely girls) come knocking on the door was a special experience. Sometimes the adventure began on Christmas Day when out-of-the-way places could be visited by wrenboys to ensure the maximum amount of ground could be covered on St Stephen’s Day itself. In the 1960s the younger groups cycled or walked to the houses. I was part of a group one year which began the musical rounds at dawn and toured for ten hours. We collected quite a “ball of jack” as coins could be called at the time. I was on guitar and mouth organ, the “real Muirseen Durkan”. There were no rehearsals done and no tunes learned. We composed as we played like old Nero in burning Rome. But we made big money because people paid money to stop us playing! Big milage covered too on our bikes.
Later on in our budding lives, dances were organised at Hegarty’s Hall in Lisselton on Christmas Night which may have impacted on our failure to arise the next day to go out in the wren. The country is going to hell, the old people were saying. Dances on Christmas Night!
Then the Fr Dan Browne road race began in 1961 and was to become popular as a St Stephen’s Day event. For runners the ancient feast day took on a new identity as the event became synonymous with December 26th. The man after whom the race is named was born in the townland of Molahiffe, Firies in 1936. He attended national school in Farranfore and then proceeded to second level at St Brendan’s, Killarney. He was a useful sprinter in his youth. Then to Maynooth to study for the priesthood and was ordained in 1960. He was appointed to Cwmbran Mon parish in South Wales. A year after being ordained, he was killed in a car crash while returning from a visit to his friend Fr Gearóid Ó Donnchadha. That year, 1961 the road race began and the local curate, Fr O’Leary donated an old parish football league cup to the athletic club for the occasion in honour of Fr Dan. The man whom Fr Dan was visiting on the fateful day in 1961, Fr Ó Donnchadha died in a house fire in Fenit in 2015 and his family donated a cup for the ladies’ race in 2016. A Christmas races with identity indeed.
St Brendan’s AC has been one of the many clubs to accumulate a folklore around the Fr Dan Browne event over the years. Dan Murphy won the event on four occasions from 1967 to 1970, running then for St John’s AC (before Ardfert AC was formed) he led home a strong field ahead of John Spillane and Pat Cronin, both of Ovens, Cork with N O’Sullivan, Farranfore AC, Pat Maguire of Ardfert, running for St John’s and Donal Crowley, St John’s. Dan was to proceed to Washington State University later to where he would finish fourth to the legendary Steve Prefontaine in the NCAA cross-country championships. Dan’s brother Hugh won the U17 two mile event.
President of St Brendan’s AC Patrick O’Riordan has an old acquaintance with the Fr Dan Browne event. His first time running in Farranfore was in 1968 when he was U16. He finished in 2nd place to future Olympian Jerry Kiernan. He ran every year from 1968-1977 and then took part as often as possible, getting silver in the O50 race in 1999. The event ranks highly in his memory but he always found the going tough from the railway gates to Crowley’s shop which was the finish line for years.
One of St Brendan’s AC’s former stars who achieved something unique in the St Stephen’s Day race is Freda Davoren. While competing for UCC, Freda won the race outright in 2003. A feat unlikely to be bettered soon. Niamh Kissane of St Brendan’s AC won the junior event in Farranfore in 1994 a few weeks after winning the All Ireland U18 cross country title while Anne Maria Costelloe was a regular forefronter in the race.
In more recent years, St Brendan’s AC has been represented by numerous athletes on Fr Dan Browne day. In 2019 Andreas Weiss ran a pb for the 5K distance with 23:27 in his first appearance in the event. Peter Jackson ran through cold rain to get to the end a few years ago and ran past the finish line to get an early cup of tea in the clubrooms. He was amazed at the reception he got as he was mistakenly hailed as the winner. He tried to explain that he had finished back the field but no one believed him until the official results were announced! For David and Irene Butler, the 2014 event carries special memories. They had learned 3 days earlier that they would be moving to Kerry to live and decided to celebrate their news by running on St Stephen’s Day. Irene used some colourful language when the notorious hills revealed their full force. And then the couple, with over two kilometres to go, met the top finishers running out against them on their cool down, they had a full introduction to athletics in Kerry! Pat Sheehy always enjoyed the run, especially the older course out to Firies church and back and recalls that Dublin footballer Cian O’Sullivan was a regular participant…his parents come from nearby. Willie O’Riordan came from Cork to run the race in the 1970s and would celebrate afterwards in Joe O’Sullivan’s in Ardfert. Artur and Kirstie Nowak and family ran in the event a number of years, including a very wet 2018 and the Horgan family have graced the race also. Other St Brendan’s AC athletes remember eating a feed of yesterday’s fried turkey too soon before the race and experiencing Vesuvian eruptions on the first hill while others praise the primal and midwinterish emotions connected with its staging. A people’s event indeed, especially as a runner can be out-attituded by its challenges in the gloom-room of winter. An expressive race, full of vigour, an event forged in the past but suitable for all times. A statement of intent for the new year at the end of the old year.
A perennial icon of the Fr Dan Browne event was Jack Crowley, standing outside the shop as the runners rolled home. He once told me a story about the day he broke his bicycle chain in a race in Kilgarvan and his cousin from Headford had to pull him all the way back home on his bike. On the way back, the cousin stopped suddenly at a crossroads and Jack crashed into him and dislocated his thumb. The thumb couldn’t be put back in until Jack fell off his bike accidentally in a race in Causeway a few weeks later. When he picked himself up, he found the thumb was back in its sockets again!
When you visit Farranfore on St Stephen’s Day, you are enriched in many ways. Memories of Maureen Harrington, Jerry Kiernan (winner in 1970, 1971 and 1976), Neil Cusack, Laura Crowe, Freda Davoren, John Griffin (winner in 1979, 1980 and 1981), Niamh O’Sullivan, Gillian O’Sullivan (European silver medallist and Olympian, won the walk in 1999), Tom Shanahan, Kieran Lambe, John Lenihan, Des O’Connor (the Rod Stewart of Tipperary), Dan Murphy (1967-1970), Ted Sullivan (he won the race three times in 1963, 1964 and 1965), Michael Herlihy, Finny Long (international steeplechaser), Liam O’Brien (also an international steeplechaser), Jimmy Sullivan and the very first winner, Tom McCarthy in 1961, to mention just a few. What a Christmas list! And John Herlihy of Ríocht AC was third in 1999 after nearly being hit by lightening the previous day. Folklore stuff.
In old times travelling traders used to sell a yoke called a “God in the Bottle” around Christmas. Like a ship in a bottle except the bottle contained a little cross, a ladder, nails and pieces of cloth from the origins of Christianity. Now we can have a race in a bottle, a virtual race to remind us of the real thing and our dedication to it. And it’s good to hear that the race continues this St Stephen’s Day as a virtual event. Let the event come to you and close your eyes after your warm-up and let visualisation take you to Farranfore village, up the hill with 500 other runners, pass out runners, be passed out by other runners, run a relentlessly honest race, write a poem with your steps, see the low sun through the Farranfore blackthorns, breathe the pure solstice air into your lungs, turn around Jim O’Shea at the half-way mark and head back down the hill as if there is no tomorrow. Sprint and cross the line and feel good. Spiritual. Redeemed. Think of Jack Crowley waiting with a smile and a word of encouragement at the shop and then go for a cup of sweet tea in the hall like Peter Jackson did. A winter’s tale on a canvas somewhere between Van Gogh and Vermeer. A work of the old masters. Be tough with it.
’Tis the season to be running…
04 December 2020
31 October 2020
VIRTUAL DUBLIN CITY MARATHON 2020 - Kerry
Determination, achievement and teamwork are the words that spring to mind after watching our members accomplish their marathon miles this weekend. Firstly congratulations to Catherine Burke and Aine Quane who took on their very first marathon. With recent restrictions this was not an easy task so well done to you both. David Butler breezing through his half marathon on Saturday.
The strong winds did not slow John O Sullivan down as he held a strong steady pace on each loop around Ardfert , knowing every mile ran was for Banna Rescue.
Moises Olalde was hardly seen as he just flew through the miles in Kilmoyley on Sunday morning.
Linda O Sullivan was all smiles through her Half Marathon and Margaret Carlin rocked out another marathon with ease.
Club teamwork showed in abundance today with our support runners. Well done to the Kilmoyley boys Padraig, Gerald and John who ran alongside Moises offering support through each mile. Tom, Ursula and Joe kept John company in Ardfert. David Kissane ensured Margaret and Linda both finished in style. Thank you to the support cars and bike for keeping our runners safe.
In these hard times 2020 is a year that has been very hard for everyone, but the friendship within the club showed immensely today through the support that was given. Friendship like this is important and it showed throughout today.
Well done everyone!
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