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Teenage kicks for Darragh McCarthy as nightmare turns into a dream

Teenage kicks for Darragh McCarthy as nightmare turns into a dream

RTÉ News​5 days ago
With 12 minutes to go in the All-Ireland semi-final, it looked like Darragh McCarthy's debut year was going to end on a scarring note.
Sent off for the second time in the championship, after missing two scoreable frees, he watched on from the sidelines as his 14 team-mates came from behind against Kilkenny and tears of relief flowed at the finish.
Retained in the starting line-up by manager Liam Cahill for the final against Cork today, the youngster scored 1-13 of his triumphant Tipperary side's total of 3-27 as they stormed back in the second half to win by 15 points.
"It's all a mind game, really. If you let it get to you, you're going to be curled up in a ball at home in bed." the 19-year-old told RTÉ Sport in the aftermath of winning his first senior medal.
"[Tipperary performance coach] Cathal Sheridan, our man, played a big part in that. I went in for a few chats to try sort the head out. You have to steel the mind and just forget about it.
"[My team-mates] are the best in the world. What they've done for me the last 12 months, and even after the first sending off against Cork, I'd say all 40 men on the panel texted me after it. Jake Morris texted me the following morning, saying 'we'll go for a coffee'. Just to get back around the lads again.
"They're all so good. The last day, again, they looked after me there… I've no words for them.
"Noel McGrath, my favourite hurler of all time. Jason [Forde] and John [McGrath] are unreal to play with. No better man to pass to than Noel (for the last point). He thanked me. No need to thank me. I am so grateful to him."
McCarthy scored four points from play, dispatched a penalty and didn't miss a single place ball, despite constant whistles from the Cork fans who made up about 70% of the 82,300 at Croke Park.
"I know he was getting jeers from the crowd, but he just didn't hear it, he blocked it out," marvelled team-mate Michael Breen.
"Darragh's on the field every day for hours practising frees and that's no exaggeration.
"He's 19. So resilient already in the journey [the Tipperary Under 20s] they have come. They lost an All-Ireland against Offaly last year. Came back, won it this year.
"Even coming up on the bus, he's playing games on his phone and he's having a laugh. There's no seriousness or up-tightness to it.
"And I think the whole camp was that way today coming up. We just kept talking about enjoying the day, enjoying the moment and you could see that fully come out, I think. That was a fun second half to play."
Cahill's decision to keep faith in McCarthy was completely vindicated. And afterwards he spoke of the young forward in the same breath as "legendary players like Jason [Forde] and Eoin Kelly and [Seamus] Callanan.
"They can't be hanging around forever and you'll say 'where are you going to find the next one?' And suddenly up pops McCarthy, 19 years of age - he's now arrived on the scene.
"He's from a serious club up there in Toomevara – them fellas up there would eat you alive. So there was never going to be a case of Darragh's character being questioned or he doubting himself.
"That's the class of this young man and the resilience he has. And he just loves his hurling. When you love hurling like that, you get your rewards. He got his just reward today and I'm really, really happy for him."
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Clodagh Finn: They called Maeve Kyle a disgrace to motherhood — then she became an Irish Olympic icon
Clodagh Finn: They called Maeve Kyle a disgrace to motherhood — then she became an Irish Olympic icon

Irish Examiner

time3 hours ago

  • Irish Examiner

Clodagh Finn: They called Maeve Kyle a disgrace to motherhood — then she became an Irish Olympic icon

Maeve Kyle, the multi-sport athlete and three-time Olympian who died on Wednesday, often told the story of the outrage that greeted her selection to compete in the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. The sting of the condemnation in a particularly virulent letter to the editor in The Irish Times stayed with her. You can almost visualise the curled-lipped indignation of its writer as he (or perhaps she) spat these words on the page: 'A sports field is no place for a woman'. Sending a woman — and a married one at that — to represent Ireland at the Games was 'most unbecoming, unseemly and degrading of womenfolk. It must not be countenanced on any grounds.' The letter was signed Vox Populi, a sign-off that was both arrogant and cowardly; here was a person willing to represent the voice of the people yet felt the need to hide behind a pen name, although that pseudonym was in regular use at the time. It is also fair to say that the sentiment reflected a widespread belief that Maeve Kyle was indeed a 'disgrace to motherhood', as she described it later herself. Even her own parents-in-law were opposed to her jetting off to Melbourne, leaving her husband (and coach) Sean and their young daughter Shauna behind. 'They never congratulated me. They never asked me how I did and they lived next door. It was quite extraordinary,' she said in an expansive and beautiful interview with Eoin O'Callaghan published in this paper in 2016. HISTORY HUB If you are interested in this article then no doubt you will enjoy exploring the various history collections and content in our history hub. Check it out HERE and happy reading And yet, you'll find evidence of early support for burgeoning female talent in places where you might not expect to find it. Who, for instance, would have imagined that Éamon de Valera, a man not known for championing women's sports, would be one of Maeve Kyle's early admirers? After winning a race at Trinity College in Dublin in the early 1950s, she got a message to say de Valera would like to meet her. 'I was brought into the enclosure and there he was. 'A fine race you ran', he said. I was gobsmacked that he was even talking to me. And then he said, 'Unusual for women' — I always remember that Whatever the early reservations in the press and society at large, it wasn't long before Maeve Kyle's sporting prowess blasted them away. If you scroll back through the coverage of her athletics and hockey careers, the tone changes very quickly. By the early 1960s, the newspapers were already celebrating 'each illustrious chapter in her success story' with glee. Maeve Kyle at home in Galgorm, Ballymena. And what success. It is difficult to summarise the scale and sweep of her achievements. Here is a potted summary of the sporting life of Kilkenny-born Maeve Kyle who died this week at the age of 96. She was our first track Olympian, representing Ireland in the 100m and 200m sprints in Melbourne in 1956, the year Ronnie Delany won gold in the 1500m. She competed in the Rome Olympics in 1960 and, in 1964, reached the semi-finals of both the 400m and 800m in Tokyo. She went on to win bronze in the 400m at the 1966 European Indoor Championships in Dortmund, Germany. In parallel, she chalked up an incredible 58 hockey caps for Ireland, and was named in the World All Star team in 1953 and 1959. She also competed in tennis, swimming, sailing and cricket. The tributes this week acknowledge her lasting legacy as a coach too. With her husband Sean, she set up the Ballymena & Antrim Athletics Club and she was involved in a fourth Olympic Games as coach to the Irish track and field team at Sydney 2000. In a tribute, John T Glover, coach and 'athletics nut' as he calls himself, captured something of the fortitude needed to, first, compete as an athlete and, then, carve out a space for others to do so. 'Maeve was often referred to as the 'Kilkenny Kitten', a sobriquet which was only half appropriate. Maeve was no 'kitten' and there were few in the sport who did not experience the sharp tongue of Mrs Kyle. But it was through her effervescent enthusiasm, innovation and doggedness that women's athletics developed. Competitions like the Top Ten, Top Town, indoor Track and Field in gyms and sports halls and of course the Celtic International were all down to her.' Recognition Her incomparable talent and contribution were widely acknowledged in her lifetime, which is the right time for it; no point leaving the glory until after the person has left us. There were a slew of awards. The one that comes to mind is the 2012 Irish Times/Sport Ireland Lifetime Achievement award because of its many Olympic echoes. It was presented by her teammate and friend, Ronnie Delany, who paid this tribute: 'She has achieved so many firsts, not forgetting the first Irish woman to set an indoor world record. Most of all she's a dear friend, and a pleasure and privilege to know.' That was also the year boxer Katie Taylor won Olympic gold, but there was another reflection of Irish Games glory which passed under the radar at the time. On April 10, 2012, Tipperary-born Olympian fencer Dorothy 'Tommy' Dermody died. She was one of five women on the 83-member Irish team at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, and she held the distinction of being Ireland's oldest living Olympian until she died age 102. She was also Games Mistress at Alexandra College Dublin where she taught one Maeve Kyle. (On an aside, she picked up the name 'Tommy' while travelling with her father, William, on his frequent trips away as a ship's captain. He was permitted just one female passenger — his wife Julia — so, in order to come along, Dorothy cut her hair and disguised herself as a boy called 'Tommy'. The name stuck). Like her student, Dorothy Dermody was gifted in several sporting disciplines. She represented Ireland in diving, lacrosse and squash, accomplishments which Sean Kyle referenced to persuade his wife of two years to consider competing in her first Olympics. You could say that was an early case of 'If you see it, you can be it', but what emerges from reading interviews with Maeve Kyle — thankfully, there are many — is that sport was innate to her. She offered this evocative vignette to the Irish Examiner in the aforementioned interview: 'My first sports memories are playing handball in a covered alley against my two younger brothers — I used to beat them because they were slower than me. The handball gave me fantastic hand-eye coordination. "I played touch rugby with the boys. I played hockey with the boys. I swam in the river with the boys. I was convinced I was a boy, too — living in a boy's school (her father CG Shankey was headmaster at Kilkenny College) with two brothers." When, aged 13, she told her father that she'd like to compete in the school sports day, he said he had not planned to put on a girl's event, so she just ran against the boys — and won! By then, she was a student at Alexandra College in Dublin and was living with her grandparents at the Provost's House, number 1 Grafton St, in Trinity College. Her grandfather, William Edward Thrift, was provost. I hadn't known that before, nor that Maeve Kyle had briefly studied medicine at the college. She later switched to natural sciences partly because she fancied someone in the class, or so she joked at one point. In an inglorious week when the focus has been on the Molly Malone statue on Suffolk St — and her poor, groped breasts — it would be the perfect time to honour this norm-shattering trailblazer at her former alma mater a stone's throw away. The Eavan Boland Library, the first building on Trinity's campus to be named after a woman in 2024, could do with a teammate.

'I am buzzing' - Lara Gillespie part of history-making Irish trio at women's Tour de France
'I am buzzing' - Lara Gillespie part of history-making Irish trio at women's Tour de France

RTÉ News​

time5 hours ago

  • RTÉ News​

'I am buzzing' - Lara Gillespie part of history-making Irish trio at women's Tour de France

Lara Gillespie has been in a race against time to make it to the Tour de France Femmes but, following her recovery from a bad injury, she will make history in the race on Saturday afternoon. The women's Tour de France begins in Vannes, Brittany and, for the first time ever, there will be an Irish presence. In fact not one but three Irish riders will take part: Gillespie, current national champion Mia Griffin and last year's title holder Fiona Mangan. This is the fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, but Irish women were also absent from the previous women's race run by the Tour organisers between 1984 and 1989. The event is the biggest race on the women's calendar, and has greatly helped the growth of the women's side of the sport, and gives Gillespie a lot of satisfaction be lining out in it. "I am buzzing to be one of the first Irish girls to be at the Tour, so that is really exciting to be part of," she told RTÉ Sport on Friday. "I'm happy to see Fiona and Mia in there and we can experience this whirlwind together." Gillespie has long shown her talent on the track, taking European championship titles at junior, under 23 and Elite level. The Enniskerry rider was, along with Griffin, part of the Irish team pursuit squad which finished a fine ninth in last year's Olympics. She is an accomplished road race rider too, and secured a contract with the UAE Team ADQ WorldTour-level squad last summer following victory in the Antwerp Port Epic Ladies race, plus the Giro Mediterraneo Rosa. This season has been a very promising one for the 24-year-old, with strong results in a number of races. She was runner up in the Fenix Omloop van het Hageland, and third in both Le Samyn des Dames and the Danilith Nokere Koerse. In May she was fourth on a stage of the Vuelta España Femenina, one of the biggest races in the sport. "I am super grateful and feel really privileged to be part of the team," she said of her selection for the Tour de France Femmes. "It is a really great opportunity and a great team we have here." However, she almost missed the chance. In mid-June, Gillespie fell in the Elmos Dwars door het Hageland race. She remounted and was able to sprint in 12th, but after the race it became clear that something was amiss. "I had an unfortunate crash over a month ago where I landed on my sacrum," she said. "I had fluid in the bone. I didn't break anything, but I had to really rest a lot from the races." Trying to get ready for the Tour, she went to Spain with her first coach, Martin O'Loughlin. They worked hard together and she quickly built form. "I had a really nice ten days in Majorca, with Martin motorpacing me," she said. "That was really cool. I knew if I left that camp sprinting good, doing high intensity, doing high volume then I could get through to the team. "So that is what happened, and so I am here with a really strong team, really good energy. We are ready to fight for some stages, so that is really cool." The 24-year-old is a strong sprinter and will relish the opportunity to square up against the world's best such as the Dutchwoman Lorena Wiebes. Stages one and two are lumpy and feature uphill finishes which may favor different types of riders, but days three and four are predicted to end in bunch gallops. From there things get progressively more mountainous, meaning sprint specialist Gillespie's best chances of high placing will be in the first half of the race. Griffin (Roland Le Dévoluy) and Mangan (Winspace Orange Seal) will also be looking forward to those early stages, with aims of helping their teams but also trying to show their own strength too. There is an additional goal for the trio; building up vital experience in the sport's top event in order to grow as competitors and to become even stronger. And making history for Irish cycling? That's a significant motivation too. Tour de France Femmes schedule: Stage 1, Saturday 26 July: Vannes to Plumelec, 78.8 km (49 miles) Stage 2, Sunday 27 July: Brest to Quimper, 110.4 km (68.6 miles) Stage 3, Monday 28 July: La Gacilly to Angers, 163.5 km (101.6 miles) Stage 4, Tuesday 29 July: Saumur to Poitiers, 130.7 km (81.2 miles) Stage 5, Wednesday 30 July: Chasseneuil-du-Poitou to Guéret, 165.8 km (103 miles) Stage 6, Thursday 31 July: Clermont-Ferrand to Ambert, 123.7 km (76.9 miles) Stage 7, Friday 1 August: Bourg-en-Bresse to Chambéry, 159.7 km (99.2 miles) Stage 8, Saturday 2 August: Chambéry to Saint François Longchamp – Col de la Madelaine, 111.9 km (69.5 miles) Stage 9, Sunday 3 August Praz-Sur-Arly to Châtel Les Portes du Soleil Pré Lajoux, 124.1 km (77.1 miles)

Kenny raves about St Pat's ace and lauds 'incredible football intelligence'
Kenny raves about St Pat's ace and lauds 'incredible football intelligence'

Irish Daily Mirror

time5 hours ago

  • Irish Daily Mirror

Kenny raves about St Pat's ace and lauds 'incredible football intelligence'

Stephen Kenny has hailed Jay McClelland for stepping out from the shadows and into the European spotlight for St Pat's. McClelland was the Saints man-of-the-match in Thursday's tense 1-0 Conference League win over nine-man Kalju, a result that puts St Pat's in control going to Estonia. And if they hold their rivals at bay on Thursday, the Inchicore men will face the loser of the Europa League tie between Besiktas and Shakhtar Donetsk. As it stands, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's Besiktas are the most likely opponents as they lost Thursday's first-leg 4-2 at home. McClelland, 28, has been at St Pat's since 2020 but hasn't always been a starter and when he does play, he could be deployed in any number of positions. Lately, the attacking midfielder has been playing at left-back but has also popped up on the left wing and in the middle of the park. Click this link or scan the QR code to receive the latest League of Ireland news and top stories from the Irish Mirror. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice . But Kenny has hailed McClelland's professionalism for refusing to cave when opportunities were hard to come by, after becoming a key man in Europe this year. Ex-Ireland boss Kenny said: 'No, he hasn't (always been a starter), and hasn't always been in the squad - he's been in the stand in the past. He's had to bide his time but he's just having a run of form and his innate football intelligence is incredible. St Pat's Jay McClelland and Daniil Tarassenkov of Kalju (Image: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne) 'He can see great pictures and has the technical ability to execute really intelligent passes and crosses. He's a very intelligent player. The physicality maybe wasn't his strongest point but he has adapted that to his game to help him play there. 'He's worked on aspects of his game which weren't his strongest points where you might get exposed as a left-back, in your one-on-one defending and your heading. 'He's got much better at those facets of the game and his distribution is very inventive. It's a competitive area for us. Anto Breslin has never let us down, he's always been a terrific full-back at the club. 'At the start of the season we probably wouldn't have factored Jason playing at left-back but when people take their opportunity you have to reward that.' McClelland only started five league games last season - he came on another 16 times - but already has 12 Premier Division starts this year from his 21 league appearances. At no stage since Kenny took charge 14 months ago has the Dubliner ever knocked on the manager's door demanding to leave. St. Patrick's Athletic's Jay McClelland (Image: ©INPHO/Dan Clohessy) Kenny said: 'He was out of contract last year but I made it clear to him that I wanted him to stay. His versatility is important. Even when he's not in the team, he's super fit and that's a challenge because players find it hard to stay at the level when they're not in the team- they get demoralised.' Ryan McLaughlin, the former Liverpool and Northern Ireland player, is another who has stepped up to snatch a starting role. He was behind Axel Sjoberg as Kenny's right-back option, but has now wrestled the shirt off the Swede. Kenny continued: 'Ryan and Jason didn't start any of the European games last year and they're in the positions now. "You see the passing, Ryan to Jason and then Jason back to Ryan. You don't see that much in matches, those touchline to touchline passes from full-backs. But Ryan has that in his locker and the in-joke in the group is that he showed Trent Alexander-Arnold how to do it! Meanwhile, Kenny won't rule out signing a midfielder before Monday's 11pm transfer deadline for contracted players, as Romal Palmer remains on the long-term list. But Chris Forrester is nearing a return to the starting line-up after stepping up his comeback from injury of late, and scoring the all-important late winner against Kalju. Kenny said of Forrester: 'He's been a great player, a regular in nearly all of my games since I took over but he was out for eight weeks. 'That's two months and you can lose a lot. He needs to work hard. He's had a few weeks' training and is coming on so he definitely comes into our thoughts.' Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email .

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