Boyle remembers his Ballinasloe roots to give local hero an Olympic moment

Date Published: 01-Aug-2012

It may be a quiz question in years to come – who was the first Irishman to feature at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics? And former Irish rugby star Noel Mannion owes his latest claim to fame to the fact that Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle is proud of his own Ballinasloe roots.

Boyle’s opening sequence featured sporting highlights from around these islands – but the Irish clip he used was of Mannion’s legendary try against Wales at the Cardiff Arms Park back in 1989.

Nobody got a bigger shock than the former Irish number eight himself last Friday night when he arrived home from coaching the Ballinasloe juniors just in time to see his part in the Olympics.

“I was just in the door from training the Ballinasloe team and I was standing in the hallway with my gear on when my young lads called out that my try was being shown on the television,” said the former rugby star this week.

“A girl from the Olympic committee rang me last week, looking for permission to use the television footage. But I didn’t know what she intended to use it for and I never thought it would be part of the opening ceremony.”

It is estimated that last Friday’s footage of Mannion’s 70 yard run and try at Cardiff Arms Park was seen by 27 million people in Britain and a billion across the globe.

Almost immediately, speculation began to mount that Mannion’s try featured in the opening ceremony because of show director Danny Boyle’s strong links with Ballinasloe.

And that was confirmed by Boyle’s production team this week.

The award-winning film director, responsible for films such as Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and Slumdog Millionaire, used to spend all of his summers in the townland of Liscappul, between Ballinasloe and Aughrim, where his mother, Annie ‘Babs’ Meheran, was born.

Boyle, who grew up in Lancashire, is said to be hugely proud of his East Galway roots and ‘sneaked’ the footage of Mannion’s try into the opening ceremony as a tribute to a local sporting hero.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.