Archive News
Former Dublin City marathon hero still going strong
Date Published: {J}
GALWAY has produced – and continues to produce – some outstanding athletes. However, if you were to pick one as the people’s champion, then Christine Kennedy would certainly merit a worthy mention.
Although a latecomer to running – only taking to the sport in her late 20s – the now 56-year-old Corofin native has always defied the odds and she still does so even to this day.
This has been recognised by the USA Track and Field’s Masters Committee, which has named Christine Kennedy (nee Boyle), now a US citizen who lives in Los Gatos in Northern California, as its Masters Athlete of the Year for 2011.
Needless to say, Kennedy is thrilled. “It’s definitely a great honour; there is no doubt,” beams Kennedy, who is due to receive her accolade at the Jesse Owens Awards and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in St. Louis, Missouri on Saturday, December 3. “I am very proud,” she adds.
Kennedy – the first woman to win back-to-back Dublin City Marathons in 1990 and ’91 – has been chosen for this highest of honours following a string of superb performances right across the United States. She not only won the USA Masters 5km, 10km and 15km championships this year, but she also took gold in the 5,000 metres track and the marathon at the 2011 World Masters Athletics Championships last summer as well.
The 5,000m event was a particularly interesting one as it pitted Kennedy against previous Jesse Owens award winner, Kathryn Martin of New York, the veteran who had dominated distances from 800 metres to the half marathon over the previous decade, winning a plethora of national and world titles.
Consequently, followers of athletics in the United States were eagerly anticipating the showdown and they were not disappointed as the Galway woman produced an explosive final lap to finish an incredible 22 seconds clear of the reigning champion.
“You know, I had heard of this girl for so long and they [pundits] always put me ahead of her or with others she was ahead of me. We had never raced each other, so when I saw her at the track, I said to myself ‘she knows how to win a 5,000 metres’.
“I hadn’t done one in years. So, I decided to tag in behind her until the last mile and I was surprised she only came with me then for half a lap [in the closing stages]. But, you know, you don’t believe these things until you cross the line. It was great. I mean, to beat the current champion like that, it felt really good.”
These days, the mother-of-two co-owns a running gear store in Los Gatos where she has made a new life for herself. It is a long way from her native Corofin and, indeed, Galway City Harriers, with which she first started her running career.
“I suppose, I was inspired years ago when I saw a married woman, Emily Dowling, win the Dublin Marathon [1981]. I wasn’t even running at that stage. I was just a stay-at-home mother with my two daughters [Fiona and Michelle] and I thought, a married woman winning the Dublin Marathon, well if she can do it, why can’t I?”
Within two years, Kennedy had firmly established herself as a formidable runner, winning such events as the Galway Marathon in a time of 2 hours, 56 minutes and 19 seconds.
In 1984, she was crowned National Marathon Champion following a string of good performances and she carried this form onto the cross country circuit where she also excelled. Indeed, she would later represent Ireland in this discipline.
It was not until 1990, though, that Christine Kennedy realised the dream she had conjured up in her sitting-room almost a decade earlier. Having secured her first national marathon title with an easy victory in a time of 2hours, 38 minutes in Clonmel in April, 1990 – two minutes clear of second placed Elizabeth Butler, John Treacy’s twin sister – she finally secured that Dublin City Marathon win she promised herself all those years before.
Kennedy came home in a time of 2:41:27, over four minutes ahead of second placed Galway City Harriers Bernie Stankard. It was a powerful display. A year later, she became the first person to successfully defend her title in an even faster time of 2:35:55. Only one other woman has done this, Russian Alina Ivanova [2006 & ‘07].
“That was a very prestigious race to run in and to win,” continues Kennedy. “I mean, the first time I won it I was hero in my village of Corofin. They had bonfires blazing and it was just a spectacular surprise when I got back home.”
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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