It has taken her 32 years to get to this spot, at this time, in this place. Sunday June 10th, 2024, Stadio Olimpico, Rome, 9.40pm. The finalists in the women’s 1,500m are approaching the home straight and Ciara Mageean lies handy in third place and, as they would say in horse racing, “still pulling double on the bit”.
She took silver in the same race four years earlier and looks perfectly positioned to upgrade the colour of her medal this time. She has only one more problem to solve. There are two English athletes blocking her route to the finish line and a French runner has suddenly arrived from nowhere on her outside to congest the traffic even further.
People watching on TV all over Ireland and beyond apprehensively take a collective breath and hands clutch faces at the prospect of an approaching calamity. But Mageean knows what the viewers have yet to realise. Her problem has already been solved. It was solved long ago in her beloved hometown of Portaferry, which stands lonely and remote on the southern end of the Ards peninsula in Co Down.
Mageean’s love for her community is deeply held. She describes her feeling when returning home after a prolonged absence. The feeling that surges when she drives around that last bend when sees a sign that reads “Portaferry”.
“To be honest, I get such a great feeling of warmth and contentment,” she enthuses. “It’s home and that’s where I feel most happy. I’m lucky enough to travel all around the world but there is genuinely nowhere I’d rather be than sitting in the little field behind my house, looking at the windmill hill.
“I can see the windmill, I can see out to the mouth of the lough. I can see everything that has been my whole life, my upbringing, my town. If I glance to the side, my primary school is there, the local chapel, the hurling club. It’s funny, when you grow up in a small town, there’s a bit of you that always wants to get out and see the world, to travel, to spread your wings. And I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to do that.
“But there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than sitting in that field with the little cocker and springer spaniels running around me. It just makes me feel safe and happy.”
When Mageean speaks of home you can almost touch the damp dew on the morning grass, smell the sea spray from Strangford Lough and hear the hubbub of passing strangers on the street. Except that in Portaferry, a place where, as Mageean explains, “everybody is connected”, there is no such thing as a stranger.
“When I’m home and head down the street there is not a single interaction that doesn’t become a whole conversation,” she laughs. “Sometimes I won’t even pop into Gerry’s shop for a pint of milk because I know I’ll be there for half an hour. But I love it.
“I love how caring everybody is of one and other and it keeps me grounded. It’s a humbleness that brings you back down to your roots. It’s my extended family, it gives me a great sense of pride and I want to bring something back to the people who made me who I am.”
Mageean’s childhood was immersed in her Irish identity; Mass, dancing and music. But it was camogie that interested her most. She hero worshipped her older sister, Maire, who was an enthusiastic player, and her aunt Edel Mason was an All-Star nominee for Antrim in the game’s centenary year of 2004.
She credits a PE teacher at her secondary school in Ballynahinch as being the first to recognise her potential talent for distance running, although she suspects Ms Cambridge hoped that a lonelier sport might help dissipate the aggression and hyper-competitiveness that her pupil brought to group gym classes. But when she talks of her community it’s clear that its camogie still holds her heart tightly. For her it’s more than a sport; it’s a therapy.
“There is something about that sound or the sound of a ball of a gable wall, that gentle thud. It seems to bring me back to my youth, my roots,” she reflects. “I would love to go back to camogie if the body ever allows.
“Before I headed over to the Europeans, I was having a rocky few weeks where I was going through a few stressful things mentally. I was due out for a 30-minute run but was down in the dumps so I said to my boyfriend (Thomas Moran) that I was going to grab my stick instead and head down to the council pitch. I just went along, picking up the ball – striking it, running, picking up the ball – striking it, running. It put the miles in and it helped me to mentally reset.”
Mageean dreams of getting home permanently some time, of tangibly contributing to the community that reared her – maybe a running track at the top of the peninsula or a running club in her hometown. But first there’s the Paris Olympics to be navigated. Another chance to put Portaferry on the map?
“Aach, everybody talks about putting Portaferry on the map,” she responds. “But for me it’s always been on the map, whether I’m successful or not.
“But I want to return home. I want to get back to the community that made me who I am. I live in Manchester and people often ask me if I’ll stay here and the question is barely out of their mouth and I’ve already said ‘No’.
“I might have to compromise with the Meath man I’ve been with for 10 years and not get all the way down the peninsula but I want to go back. I want to give back. If I can inspire one kid who sees me on television to go out and achieve their dreams in sport – or art or academia, or whatever – that would mean more to me than all the record times and medals.”
But before all that she still has that problem to solve. Sunday June 10th, 2024, Stadio Olimpico, Rome, 9.40pm and five seconds. The finalists for the women’s 1,500m have now entered the straight and the gap between the two English runners is still only about half the width of Mageean and her camogie-sharpened elbows: more than enough space for a woman raised to put her fearless head into clusters of flailing hurls without worrying over the outcome.
She widens the gap and surges to her European gold medal, still strong, still “on the bit”.
Immediately after her victory, Mageean was already paying tribute to the community that had raised her, the half-hour pint of milk, the spaniels in the field behind her house.
Following his finest away win against Napolean Bonaparte, the Duke of Wellington reputedly remarked that “the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”. Following her finest win, to date, Ciara Mageean knew instinctively that the battle of the Stadio Olimpico had been won the camogie pitch of Portaferry.
- Ciara Mageean is an ambassador for the Flogas Olympic sponsorship programme