By Kieran Kelly
In spite of being a strongly distance based club, Raheny Shamrock has always had a strong sprint tradition.
The first national title won by the club being the 4×400m men’s relay in 1970, Ciaran McDunphy winning national sprint hurdle titles in the 1980s and 1990s as well as setting national senior and junior records along the way, Paddy Noonan representing Ireland and winning national senior medals, Kieran Finn winning the 400m national senior title in 1987 and various 4x400m teams in the late 1970s and 1980s winning national senior titles.
However after Ciaran McDunphy’s retirement in the early 1990s, sprinting in the club at national level took a backstep for a decade thereafter.
There were promising juniors along the way, but most petered out and left the sport by 18-20. In the early 2000s middle to long distance runners were often filling out the 400m in the national league due to lack of sprint talent available.
This began to change around 2004/2005 when a new generation of sprinters came through the club juvenile ranks. Having all been in the club juvenile’s system for a number of years under the guidance of Kay Bannon and a number of other coaches, national success in the 4x100m u-17 category in 2005 came for Barry O’Donoghue, Mick Hynes and David Smith.
They were joined by Jamie Davis who joined the club in the summer of 2005 having previously been a rugby player. This quartet would repeat this feat in the u-18 and u-19 categories in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
I myself joined the club and the sprint group in the late summer of 2005, having previously aborted an attempt at joining the club in 2002 as I didn’t know anyone and was more interested in playing Grand Theft Auto 3 on Playstation 2.
What began in 2005 was a golden period for Raheny sprinting. We were all in the same training group and around the same age under the coaching of John Doran and Colm Giblin.
In the juvenile and junior ranks we began to sweep all before us, the already mentioned three in a row 4×100 national successes and myself, Mick Hynes and Jamie Davis winning national titles or medals at schools, juvenile and junior level plus regularly representing the club in national league action against adults.
Mick, David, Jamie and Barry after one of their three in a row national juvenile 4x100m successes in the mid 2000s
Some stand out facts from 2007 in particular, a clean sweep in the Leinster Schools senior boys sprint titles by Mick Hynes 100/200 and myself 400, a clean sweep in the All-Ireland junior sprints Mick 100/200 and Jamie Davis 400 ( I was a harrowing fourth).
Mick and I, medaling at the All-Ireland senior boys finals with Mick winning the 200m title and finishing second in the 100m and myself finishing second in the 400m, while Mick won five national titles at schools, junior and juvenile levels in the space of six weeks.
Hynes would later finish fourth in a national senior 200m final in a class time for a 17-year-old of 21.70 seconds behind top senior sprinters and experienced senior Irish internationals of the time Paul Hession, Darragh Graham and David Hynes.
Hession himself ranking as the fastest European 200m runner for a period that summer.
Mick would even go on to win the 100m and 200m in the national league final beating many strong senior athletes, while also represented Ireland in the Mannheim junior international meet having previously represented in 2006 along with Jamie Davis at the Celtic Games.
The team of myself, Jamie, Barry and Mick would beat a 23-year-old 4x100m junior record in the league final that day, a record that stood until 2014.
2008 would not live up to 2007 due to many in the group completing the leaving cert and Jamie Davis moving to UCD on scholarship and suffering injuries.
Kieran Kelly and Barry O’Donougue competing in a graded 100m in 2008.
Around this time Susan Scallan came through on the female sprinting side and would herself win junior and juvenile titles, making a good trust at national finals.
2009 would see a return to success on the national stage at u-23 level and the club’s sprinting stature grew in strength as myself, Mick and Jamie began regularly appearing in national senior finals.
In 4x400m and 4x100m in the league everyone feared and respected a Raheny team. The strength in depth was further boosted by the additions of Rob Rath, Peter Shallow, Brendan Doyle and Ciaran O’Cathain, the latter originally from Roscommon would win a national senior 60m hurdles indoor title in 2010.
Mick Hynes with Chris Russell of Ferrybank after finishing second to Russell in the national senior indoor 200m final in February 2009.
So began the successful transition of junior and u-23 success to the senior ranks as between 2009-2014 national senior medals were won.
A Raheny sprinter would feature on the podium in each of these years, Mick Hynes second 200m indoors 2009, Peter Shallow and Ciaran O’Cathain second and third respectively 110m hurdles outdoors 2009, Ciaran O’Cathain 2010 first 60m Hurdles indoors 2010, Peter Shallow second 110m hurdles outdoors 2010, myself second 400m 2011 indoors, 4 x 100m 1st 2012 outdoors, 4x400m medals in 2010, 2012 & 2013 and Jamie Davis third 200m indoors 2012, second 60m & 200m indoors 2013, third 60m indoors 2014 and 1st 100m outdoors 2014. The last success being the most impressive.
On the weekend itself Jamie had competed in the 200m heat and final on Saturday coming in a disappointing last in the final and had decided that night he wasn’t going to run in the 100m the next day.
To his own coach Ian Graham’s surprise he showed up for the 100m heats the next day and lined up for the final which was made nervy by disqualifications in the heats, especially for some top names like David Hynes, Jonathan Browning and Keith Pike.
Jamie held it together for the final and got the win in spite of celebrating slightly early and only wining by thousandths of a second as a result of the celebrating from Eanna Madden.
Another Raheny sprinter Sean O’Driscoll, a junior athlete, came a close fourth. The photos of Jamie crossing the line are a great example of a sportsman going through all the emotions, especially the ones he encountered in the previous 24 hours.
His RTE interview that day mentioning how he was considering not turning up and getting ‘a bag of cans’ was particularly memorable.
The club’s first and to date only national senior 100m title win.
2014 would proof poignant for Raheny sprinting and my generation of sprinters as Jamie Davis retired from the sport and moved to New Zealand, it would be Mick Hynes’s last serious tilt at sprinting and I myself moved up to middle distance after surprising myself with a sub 1.50 clocking for 800m in Manchester in what was only 6th time running the event.
Barry O’Donoghue and David Smith had long retired as had the likes of Rob Rath, Peter Shallow, Brendan Doyle and Ciaran O’Cathain.
New recruit Brandon Arrey’s silver medal in the national outdoor 400m final the summer just gone, 2014 was the last time that a Raheny sprinter medalled individually at national senior level.
Just when it appeared a golden generation had moved on and Raheny would revert back to a fallow state of sprinting like 1995-2005, greenshoots appeared with the emergence of Sean O’Driscoll and Mark Smyth.
Sean has to date won national juvenile, junior and u-23 titles grabbing a famous victory over red hot favourite Zak Irwin in the 60m indoor junior final in 2015 and even ran 10.78 for the 100m in 2017 bettering the times of Mick and Jamie who were great 100m runners in their time.
Mark Smyth’s story has been truly outstanding, a latecomer into the sport not fully committing until aged 18 having previously played Gaelic games Mark would win schools, junior and juvenile titles and even managed to break the club’s senior records in 100m and 200m in 10.70 and 21.36 respectively, records set by one season wonder Limerick man Kieran Finn (10.71 and 21.57) in the summer of 1987 that were beyond Mick and Jamie and times many thought would last almost forever.
Mark’s time of 21.36 was ran in the 2017 European junior 200m final where he came a creditable 6th.
Unfortunately for Mark 2018 was not to be his year due to illness and injury and he only ran 2 races in April and May. Here’s hoping he can make a successful return in 2019.
Mark Smyth after finishing 6th in the 2017 European Championship Junior 200m final in a personal best of 21.36. A high note for sprinting in the club’s history and indeed overall history.
The women’s side too saw competitiveness as the 400m record was reduced nearly every year by Siobhan Eviston, Iseult O’Donnell, Aisling Drumgoole and Susan Scallan, the latter frustratingly finishing fourth in 3 national senior finals in the 2010s.
The women’s sprint relay club records all stand from the summer of 2012, 4x100m (J Corcoran, V Dwyer, A Drumgoole, F Juhasz) and 4x400m (I O’Donnell, A Drumgoole, S Scallan, S Eviston).
Aisling Drumgoole won indoor and outdoor 400m in varsity titles in 2015 and would also go on to represent Ireland in the 4x400m in the European team championship that summer on the back of her 55.66 time.
There was also the hallmark moment of 2015 when both male and female teams won 4x400m national senior titles on the same day with all athletes on both teams being entirely developed within the club.
The summer of 2018 was bookended neatly, in Berlin during the 2018 World Para Athletics European Championships, Orla Comerford who competes in the T13 category, due to a detoriation in her eyesight known as Stargardt’s Disease.
Won bronze at the 100m and 200m, her first international medals which came after competing in Paralympics in Rio in 2016 and the World Championships in 2017 where she was a finalist in both championships.
Orla Comerford at the 2017 World Para AthleticsChampionships, London
The future appears bright with emerging athletes coming through such as Michael Farrelly (who has already ran sub 11 seconds for 100m at age 15!), Jamie Sheridan, Conall O’Toole, Sean L’Estrange while Brandon Arrey, who recently joined from Blarney/Inniscara, finally erased Kieran Finn from the individual club records when he took Finn’s 400m 31 year record of 47.19 by running 47.05 in the Belfast International in June.
Brandon also competed in the European Championships for Ireland the same summer running in the 4x400m.
Here’s hoping too that the 4x100m men’s club record of 42.37 from 1987 can be broken which in theory should have been broken in the years 2011-2012 when we had an abundance of quality sprinters but quite often messy relay exchanges let the team down.
A potential quartet of Michael Farrelly, Sean L’Estrange, Sean O’Driscoll and a fit again Mark Smyth could take the record. The club 4x400m record of 3.16.62 from 1987 could also be revised in the coming years from a wide panel containing the likes of Brandon Arrey running sub 47 seconds legs, myself still able to manage 48-49 seconds splits, the likes of Conall O’Toole, Jamie Sheridan, Dylan Kirwan and Sean Dowling all veering at 50 seconds split mark and all with the potential for sub 50 seconds splits, a returning Cillian Kirwan from injury and possibly Brian Fay, a young upcoming middle distance runner with times of low 1.50 for 800m, 3.43 for 1500m and 4.00.45 for the mile.
The people behind the athletes deserve a special mention for the hours put in coaching and mentoring over the years Kay Bannon, Brian Corcoran, Mary Coghlan, John Doran, Colm Giblin, Gerry Giblin, Michael Hynes, Paddy Noonan, Colette Quinn and Damien Wall.
