WE’RE JUST BLOWN away by the support. It’s evenings like these that make us proud to say that we’re from Ireland, we’re from Cork, we’re from West Cork but most importantly, we’re from Skibbereen.
Paul and Gary O’Donovan could only get out a few words at a time with RTÉ’s Jacqui Hurley before the next wave of applause erupted from the crowd below. The brothers were on stage in their Team Ireland gear, with Olympic silver medals draped over the necks. Their coach Dominic Casey was in the seat next to them. Some local dignitaries were at the back as the voice of the home support soared.
Paul, the younger of the two O’Donovan siblings, had also just won a gold medal at the World Rowing Championships. But he was at ease with his newfound fame. Gary likewise as they passed the microphone over and back to say their piece. This was their first time to see the impact of their success at a local level. In trying to convey the mystery around what awaited them, Paul relayed a message that was sent to him before their arrival.
“You’ve no idea what you’re after doing at home.”
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They start arriving for 6pm training at around 5.45pm by car and by bike. I’m greeted by club chairman, Seán Murran, in the carpark, who has already advised me to dress warm for the evening. My car screen reads that there’s 17.5 degrees of June heat outside, so I’m confident that a light jumper is a safe bet.
But when I step inside the clubhouse to meet the coaches who are running this evening’s session, they all greet me with the same knowing glance.
“One extra layer out on the water,” Murran tells me as he hands me a fleece and a life jacket, “no matter the weather.”
We make our way down to the equipment hall which is a shed that faces out onto the River Ilen. The words ‘Skibbereen Rowing Club’ are emblazoned above the door. That, and an Olympic flag on a pole in the car park, are the only monuments to the club’s incredible success outside the building. Ribbons are pinned up on the walls inside the clubhouse, along with pictures of some Skibbereen rowers who have become dominant forces in the sport.
This is ground zero for Olympic champions Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy, Olympic silver medalist Gary O’Donovan, and Emily Hegarty who won a bronze medal as part of the women’s coxless four at the Tokyo Games.
The shed is stacked with boats, and organised into shelves. Training boats that are about 30-40 years old are on the bottom row and competition boats for the more competent racers are placed above. Light to touch, I’m invited to lift one by the Skibbereen club captain Seán O’Brien who has been involved with the running of things for the last 20 years.
“They’re shaped like an egg,” he says with a deep crackly West Cork lilt. “They have a tendency to roll.” That feature of the equipment brings in the importance water safety with rowing. The athletes in Skibbereen never row alone, relying always on a buddy system for everyone’s protection.
The boats needed for this evening’s session are hauled out. The rowers, aged between U18 and U23 grades have national trials coming up. They wear wellingtons while carrying the boats out to the water on their shoulders and change into their rowing shoes already waiting for them once inside.
In the summer time, during the school holidays, rowers are out on the water twice a day. Morning sessions are an intense workload of race pieces that last for about 90 minutes. This evening, they will row at a steady pace throughout an 8km loop that stretches from a small island called Deelish, down to the Oldcourt boatyard which is situated on the road that leads out to Baltimore.
Coaches Denise Walsh and Emily Dulohery join the crew in separate speed boats. They keep a vigilant watch of everyone, and maintain communication with each other through walkie-talkies. I’m in Dulohery’s boat for the first part of the session.
“Dominic Casey used to work there,” she informs me as we power along the trail towards the Old Courtyard, referring to the club’s famous coach who is now the national lightweight men’s and women’s coach.
This part of the river is also close to the home place of Teddy O’Donovan, father of Gary and Paul. It was once a popular spot for salmon fishing, and the first boats owned by the club belonged to those fisherman who were part of that rich industry. Three men called Richard Hosford, Danny Murphy and Donie Fitzgerald combined to form the club in 1970. It all began with parking their boats in a farmer’s field nearby, and carrying them over a ditch and up to a pier to get them in the water.
Today, the rowers only need to walk a few steps to launch their boats.
“A lot of the athletes here this evening are the grandchildren of those fisherman,” Dulohery adds.
There’s no-one else on the river on this sunny evening as the boats cut through the placid water. And that’s how it normally is here. Occasionally, a kayaker will appear during the odd session, but that’s the extent of the traffic. No obstructions, no distractions. A place to practice peacefully.
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The boats scatter as the session gets underway. We’re just a few minutes into it when a boat reports a mechanical problem to the coaches. Walsh is first on the scene, reaching for her toolkit as we arrive. She needs something from Dulohery’s boat to fix the issue but it’s nothing major.
“That boat has been on the rack for a while,” Dulohery tells me as she jacks up the motor to get us going again. The different boats pass by us as we charge up the river. Boys and girls. Single sculls. Pairs. Coxless [one oar each side] four. Quads [two oars each].
Dulohery has been rowing for Skibbereen since she was 15. She experienced international success at U18 level when she won the Coupe de la Jeunesse with Skibbereen clubmate Eileen Whooley in the pairs event. And with Paris coming up, she’s involved in a fundraising event which will see 20 locals cycle the 636km from Skibbereen to the French capital before the opening ceremony.
“Something I really like about the club,” she begins, “is that there has always been equality on the committee and among the rowers. The coaches are mainly female now.”
The influence of women at the club stretches back to 1975 when Nuala Lupton became the club’s first international rower. And it will continue in Paris when Emily Hegarty returns as part of the women’s four team who will represent Ireland at the Olympics. Aoife Casey, daughter of Dominic, will be in the women’s lightweight double sculls boat alongside fellow Cork native, Margaret Cremen from Rochestown.
When I put Dulohery’s point to club captain O’Brien, he nods in agreement.
“I would say women are leading it. There was a time when it was nearly all women here for a spell when it was smaller numbers.
“In recent years, we had a spell where the lads were very strong and were the big winners of champs. Then the girls became more prominent. They’re probably our best prospects but there are a couple of good lads there too.”
****
She went to make a move. But nothing happened. She wasn’t getting faster. She glanced down at the GPS monitor. She was looking for signs of hope. There weren’t any. She went to go again. But her legs didn’t come with her. The power wasn’t there.
Something In The Water: How Skibbereen Rowing Club Conquered The World, Kieran McCarthy
We’re about half-way through the session as I climb into Denise Walsh’s boat. We make the transfer out on the water, as I take a tentative leap across while the boats nudge lightly against each other.
She’s just a few weeks on from giving birth to her second child. Tonight, she’s with her other babies on the River Ilen. Coaching is her bag for now as family life becomes busier for her. But she may put her hands on the oars again.
A European silver medalist in the lightweight single, this sport has given Walsh some of her best days. But it threw some low moments at her too.
Like in 2016, when she was on course to compete in the lightweight double sculls at the Olympics before losing her seat to Sinéad Jennings. The above section in the brilliant book by Southern Star sports journalist Kieran McCarthy describes the A final of the Lightweight single sculls final at the World Championships in Sarasota, Florida in 2017. Another painful memory for her. Walsh went to the event with medal prospects on her mind but a persistent back injury flared up and corrupted her chances. She had to settle for sixth.
There are some regrets from her international rowing career. And yet, she’s still here. The cuts were deep but not deep enough to dim her love for this life.
“I was happy for the lads [Paul and Gary O'Donovan] and you just channel it into that, rather than thinking of what could have been,” she responds with a smile when I ask if Rio Olympics was difficult for her. Skibbereen was welcoming home silver medal heroes Paul and Gary O’Donovan, while she was silently coping with the torment of not even having the chance to compete.
“It was great for the club because it inspired all of these now who are coming up now to Junior 18. A lot of the ones I’m coaching at the moment were inspired by them.”
Walsh is engaging throughout our time in the boat. But while she fields my questions with considered answers, her eye never loses track of where her rowers are. At times, she reaches for a loudspeaker to roar out an instruction. Sometimes for safety, sometimes for technique. And her eye travels far on the water. She can identify problems at a distance where I can barely make out the number of occupants in the boat.
She can point to a rower and rattle off their achievements so far, and their aspirations for the future.
“We were always a really small club,” she says. “When I started, there were four at my age group. There was four Junior 18s and four Junior 16s. The club altogether was 30 or 40 rowers. Now, we’d get 30 coming in the door in September which is why we cap it at 30.
“So it used to be that you had four people and you try to get the most out of those four people. The only motivation was to win because it’s not glamorous at all. Now, there’s more hype about it so more are doing it for recreation.
“We want to be a really successful club so we want to make sure the athletes understand that. It’s a difficult balance.”
Evenings like this, at this time of the year, are a pleasant time to be out training. But warm weather in Ireland is seldom seen. The colder climes are what greets the rowers most days when they hop in the boat. But that’s where the rowers who are destined for greatness will distinguish themselves. The coaches can’t intervene in those moments. The choice is their own to make.
“The successful boats here are athlete-driven,” says Walsh. “You’re not going to change the way people are. They need to be driven themselves. You can’t make them do it because it’s getting up every morning at 7 o’clock in the summer while everyone else is getting a lie-in. That’s up to them, not us.
“Winter [training] is rotten but you can tell with the successful ones at the end of the year, are the ones that did get out of bed. I think rowing has grown so much in the country. When we were younger, there were less rowers and the club was very successful. Now, all the clubs are doing the same training. We were doing more than other clubs before but now everyone is doing more training and getting faster. The margins are so fine.”
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I’ll be the man to lead the band beneath the flag of green
And loud and high, we’ll raise the cry, ‘Revenge for Skibbereen!’
“I felt shaky that day,” says Seán O’Brien, recalling the day he sang Dear Old Skibbereen at Áras an Uachtaráin. It was the song of choice to mark a reception for the Skibbereen Rowing Club with President Michael D Higgins in November 2017. Incidentally, the song was also personal favourite of the wife of the President, Sabina.
It’s a rebel tune which tells the story of a father explaining to his son why he was forced to emigrate from Ireland during the famine. The lyrics above are from the final verse. It’s the response of his son, who promises of a vengeful return to Skibbereen to honour the home of his father.
O’Brien, who has sung with various bands throughout his life, was the one asked to perform of the iconic local rebel song. But there was a problem: he was advised to contain this rendition to just a few bars of the full song. O’Brien couldn’t agree to those conditions.
”‘You can’t sing a bit of Dear Old Skibbereen,’ he told them resolutely.
“It’s a story. It starts at Point A and ends in Point B. You either sing it or you don’t. It was very well received and once I got started, the whole room was with me. They were all Skibbereen as well, they all knew the words so I wasn’t going to foul up on it.”
O’Brien never rowed but has given much of his adult like to the Skibbereen club. His involvement began through his children David and Kate. He offered his hand to some light duties at the start, including lifting the boats in and out of the water. He soon found himself climbing in, teaching the youngsters how to lift the oars. Denise Walsh is one of his former students along with Emily Hegarty.
The O’Donovans passed through under his watch too. There was “divilment” and “all kinds of tricks” as they grew up to become Olympians. During their younger precocious days, they often challenged the older rowers to race them.
“Dominic used to say that some of the best coaches never rowed,” O’Brien adds, referring to the wisdom of Casey, who remains a constant presence at the club despite his appointment with the national unit.
Casey calls in briefly during our chat to inquire about the progress of the session. His son Dominic and daughter Caoimhe are out with the group. He doesn’t stay long.
“He’s very shy,” O’Brien says quietly as Casey slips away after getting the update on proceedings. “He doesn’t like the spotlight. He doesn’t like taking photographs. He likes to stay in the background and gets a kick out of the sport. He changed Irish rowing.”
The tide is starting to drift out now. A large bank of gravel starts to poke its head above the surface, as birds start landing down.
****
The rowers from Skibbereen who have reached the international stage have often been asked what makes their club so special. How can such talent emerge from such a small pocket of West Cork? And they always give the same answers assuredly: there’s no secret to the success.
But there is a secret. It’s just not something they try to conceal. It’s a secret that’s so open, it’s not even hiding in plain sight. I saw a full demonstration of it after spending just one evening in the company of those who are keeping the wheels turning some 54 years after the club was first established in 1970.
It’s the people — and their enduring passion — who make the Skibbereen Rowing club. It’s the Denise Walshs, who, despite several different knockbacks in her career, never lost her taste for the water. And it is only when your sport gives you reasons to quit that you will truly discover how much of yourself you’re willing to give to it. Just weeks after giving birth to her second child, here she is, hopping in a boat to help develop the next generation of Skibb stars. Her eye for mistakes and areas of improvement is crucial to their growth.
It’s the Emily Emily Duloherys who have been rowing since she was 15. She knows that you need to be a certain type of person with a certain character to develop a love of rowing.
It’s the Seán O’Briens who still enjoy helping young children learn how to start steering a boat long after his own kids have grown. It’s the Dominic Caseys who still maintain their involvement in the club even after becoming Ireland Rowing’s high performance coach.
And behind every stroke, every international rower, every Olympic silver medalist and every Olympic champion are three men who used to park their boat in a farmer’s field.
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