Irish crowd announce the arrival of their golden hero
Olympic Games, August 6th
It was the wee hours of the morning at Roland Garros, the venue for the French Open tennis tournament. The stadium squatted between the trees and greenery of the Bois de Boulogne on the fringe of Paris. A warm night, fans had not yet left after the finals of the Olympic boxing competition.
The ghosts of former gold medal winners should have taken the form of Muhammad Ali, Michael Carruth or Katie Taylor. But the boxing class of 2024, before they walked into the tennis arena, went through their final preparations in locker rooms that Rafael Nadal had called his own and that Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer often graced.
The Irish crowd had waited in hope of seeing Kellie Harrington, who had won her second gold medal. The Dublin lightweight, a few hours before, recorded a breathless 4-1 split decision victory over China’s Wenlu Yang.
As we sat in a room waiting for her press conference and the minutes slowly ticked by, we could hear the murmur of people below.
A couple of hours after the bout and following the medal ceremony she had stood in the hall and swung into a rendition of the haunting song Grace. We thought then she might have taken too much out of herself, or imagined she had been scooped up for the dreaded drug testing that sometimes takes dehydrated athletes hours to deliver.
But then the crowd seemed disturbed. It was low at first and in the distance. The sound was coming in through the open window and at first was difficult to make out. It then became louder and louder. Harrington was walking towards us and the fans could see her. It was initially “Kellie ... Kellie ... Kellie ... before becoming thunderous. “KELLIE ... KELLIE ... KELLIE ...” Minutes later the door threw open and double Olympic champion Harrington strode in. – Johnny Watterson
Tony Kelly conjures up scores for the ages in a magical All-Ireland final
Hurling, July 21st
While football has spent most of the year on the psychiatrist’s couch, hurling has been having the time of its life. Clare v Cork in its original iteration was seen as a fraught provincial eliminator between two desperate teams, who had lost their opening fixtures. By July they were the last ones standing.
The final carried the additional excitement of guaranteeing novelty winners: Cork nearly 20 years without Liam MacCarthy, who had beaten the reigning champions twice or Clare, 11 years empty-handed and Limerick’s most persistent opposition over the previous two seasons.
It had everything from a contest that swung and switched back like a rollercoaster to phenomenal scores – Rob Downey opened with the goal of the season but by the end it wasn’t even the goal of the match.
Clare were staggered but hung on, unfazed by Cork’s powerful opening and undaunted by early wides. It was one of the most dominant Hurlers of the Year who turned the tide. Shane O’Donnell made the first goal for Aidan McCarthy and immediately added the next two points.
Level at half-time, full time and after the first half of extra time, the match ended with an unregistered foul, as Cork missed a final equaliser. Patrick Horgan again passed TJ Reid in their duel for all-time championship top scorer.
Ultimately though, this match was decided by the re-emergence of Tony Kelly, surging clear of a year cluttered with injury issues to assemble the highest-quality scoring portfolio ever seen in an All-Ireland.
The wizardry of his goal and deftly magicked points which yielded 1-4 – a career highlights reel in one match – made a huge difference, embroidering a wonderful Clare collective display with individual bravura.
Brian Lohan had spent five years cajoling Clare back up the mountain and on an afternoon in summer, they summited. ― Seán Moran
A Friday night in Marseille proves to be the perfect hangover cure
Rugby, February 2nd
When France hosted Ireland on the opening Friday night of the 2024 Six Nations it seemed a case of too much, too soon. The matchup had produced memorable round two title shoot-outs over the previous two seasons, whereas this time it felt more like the hangman’s noose was awaiting the losers.
Both teams had suffered crushing disappointment on the same World Cup quarter-final weekend in their previous outings, when Ireland’s heartbreak in seeing a 17-match winning run end in a 28-24 loss to New Zealand was followed a day later by France losing 29-28 to South Africa. It was the weekend when the World Cup died a little.
Taking the long walk out to the Stade Vélodrome from downtown Marseille it was clear that whoever lost on that opening Friday night would have their World Cup hangover compounded.
Both teams were also missing their talismans and captains. Antoine Dupont was on a Sevens sabbatical in readiness for his golden Olympics, while Johnny Sexton had retired.
The atmosphere was sensational. Fittingly, La Marseillaise never sounded more passionate. France were missing Romain Ntamack, but even so Matthieu Jalibert was altogether more experienced and proven at the elite level of the game than Jack Crowley. As it transpired, Maxime Lucu played as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders in Dupont’s absence, despite having Jalibert alongside him.
Crowley made several errors but put them behind him to come good in the second half. Calvin Nash, Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher added to first-half tries by Jamison Gibson-Park and Tadhg Beirne as Ireland pulled clear in the last quarter to seal an emphatic 38-17 win.
Perhaps beating the world champions South Africa at full-strength in Durban, when Ireland were without Dan Sheehan, Gibson-Park, Mack Hansen, Hugo Keenan and Jack Conan was the greater achievement in the calendar year.
But it’s preferable to pick a match one attended than watched on television, and ultimately the 2024 Six Nations curtain-raiser proved to be the title decider for the third year running. ― Gerry Thornley
O’Donnell, Adeleke, Barr and Mawdsley bring the country to their feet
Athletics, June 7th
The magic of sport remains its inescapable ability to sweep you away, even if only briefly, to become completely and undeniably lost in the moment. How, on a Friday night in June, you suddenly find yourself bouncing up and down in front of the TV watching a race from Rome, repeatedly imploring a runner from Tipperary to “Go on, go on, go on”.
The Olympic and Paralympic Games this year provided so many unforgettable moments – but there was something powerfully raw and ceiling-shattering about the gold medal-winning performance of Ireland’s 4x400m mixed relay team at the European Championships in Italy.
As a nation, we traditionally tend not to trouble the podium in sprint disciplines – though hopefully that could be about to change in the years ahead. Because last June four Irish sprinters – Chris O’Donnell, Adeleke, Thomas Barr, Sharlene Mawdsley – outran the rest of Europe.
It was all so wonderfully thrilling, in just over three electric minutes of sport they smashed those perceived limitations of Irish track runners.
O’Donnell (46.09) ran a strong, steady opening leg to put Ireland in the medal mix – passing the baton to Adeleke in fourth place. She went out as if propelled from a slingshot, going toe to toe over the first 200 metres with Dutch runner Lieke Klaver as the pair blazed to the front. But coming off the final turn of her leg, Adeleke (49.53) powered away majestically, passing the baton to Barr in the lead.
Within 200 metres Belgium’s Alexander Doom had overtaken Barr and Italy’s Edoardo Scotti was on the Waterford man’s shoulder. But Barr produced a superb final 200m and his 44.90 leg was enough to maintain second at the changeover.
As Mawdsley set off on the anchor leg the positions were: Belgium first, Ireland second, Italy third, Netherlands fourth.
Mawdsley ran a disciplined first 200 metres and coming off the final bend the lead positions were unchanged. But then Mawdsley (49.40) made her move, stepping out from behind Helena Ponette and sticking on the afterburners.
As she rose to the occasion, so too did RTÉ commentator Greg Allen, “Helena Ponette is not as quick as Sharlene Mawdsley, just hold your nerve ... she’s holding her nerve,” Allen told us.
While in livingrooms across the country we were losing ours – roaring back at the TV with the only words possible, “Go on, go on, go on”.
She did. They did. Gold.
In doing so they set a new national record of 3:09.92 and joined Sonia O’Sullivan as Ireland’s only gold medal winners in the history of the European Championships. Magic. ― Gordon Manning
Duff leads Shelbourne to Hollywood ending
Soccer, November 1st
Barring the odd bright spot, it was a year to forget for both our men’s and women’s national teams, the men ending it with that 5-0 hammering at Wembley, the women by missing out on qualification for Euro 2025. Calamitous, in other words.
It fell to the leagues at home to produce the good news stories, and they turned up trumps. Ciarán Kilduff led Athlone Town to the title in only their fourth season at senior level, an absorbing three-way battle with Shelbourne and Galway United ending on the penultimate weekend.
The men’s title race, though, went down to the very last day ... and seconds ... of the campaign, Harry Wood’s 85th-minute goal at the Brandywell giving Shels their first title in 18 years and ending Shamrock Rovers’ hopes of a five-in-a-row.
It was a tortuously nerve-racking night for the supporters of both clubs, but an “absolutely Hollywood” conclusion, as Shels manager Damien Duff put it, to what had been a humdinger of a season. And few made it more entertaining than Duff himself.
If his side produced the goods on the pitch, he rarely failed to do the same off it with his weekly pronouncements and infectious passion for his job and for the league. “Box office,” he was regularly labelled, and that he was.
He played no small part in a season that produced some impressive numbers for the game at home, not least attendances across all men’s and women’s competitions topping the one million mark for the first time. And that the audience for RTÉ's coverage of that Hollywood finish to the title race peaked at over 400,000 was some indication of how it captured the imagination.
Need it be said, it wasn’t all down to Damien Duff, a thriller of a battle for the title was at the root of it all. But he contributed mightily to a season to remember. Box office. ― Mary Hannigan
Su Weide loses his grip and China loses the rag
Olympic gymnastics, July 29th
The highlight of my working year was covering Euro 2024 in Germany, where I was lucky to be at some great games – the ones that stand out in my memory were Spain beating Germany on a sunny evening in Stuttgart, and Turkey beating Georgia in a thunderstorm in Dortmund.
But a sporting highlight that doesn’t involve work is even better. A few days before the Olympics were set to begin in Paris my wife and I noticed there were still some tickets available for the men’s gymnastics final at the Bercy Arena. It then turned out that hotels in Paris were not as insanely expensive as I had assumed they would be with the Olympics in town. And so a few days later we were in Paris on the opening weekend of the Olympics, with nothing to do but walk around and be happy.
The gymnastics itself threatened to be the only negative aspect of a glorious weekend. With athletes from the many teams performing simultaneously on various pieces of apparatus, I initially struggled to make sense of what was going on, and soon became drowsy.
But after a confusing opening hour, the competition took shape as a three-way race between China, Japan and the United States. The incredible feats of athleticism of these tiny, perfectly formed men began to seem even more incredible as we grasped the competitive pressure they were under, and the tiny margins between success and failure in this sport.
The United States had the most raucous support in the arena, with China a distant second, but the Chinese gymnasts were a class apart and burned off the American challenge. They led comfortably going into the final apparatus, with only second-placed Japan within any kind of striking distance. All the Chinese had to do was complete the high bar round without any massive mistakes.
This they could not do, as the luckless Su Weide – in the team as a replacement for the injured star Sun Wei – fell off the bar, got back up and then, unbelievably, fell off again.
The Japanese team celebrated wildly, belying my notions about their likely politeness in the face of devastating embarrassment. The shattered Su sat all alone. No team-mate approached to offer sympathy or support. They couldn’t even look at him. “The main thing is, you did your best” is not the culture of Chinese gymnastics.
Afterwards, Su tearfully apologised to his team and to China for costing them gold. As a debate raged on Chinese social media over how the Chinese team had come to be represented by such a loser, Su insisted that he welcomed the criticism as it would aid his personal growth. “The price of your growth is simply too high,” the internet answered. – Ken Early
Cork and Limerick serve up a classic on Leeside
Hurling, May 11th
I know there are many GAA people around the country who watch the Munster hurling championship every year on television and swear that they’ll get to a game “next year”. If you’re one of those people, please – do yourself a favour.
I was at Cork/Limerick in Páirc Úi Chaoimh this year. If May 11th still seems early for do-or-die games in the hurling championship, it was also pretty early for gloriously warm sunshine too. And that evening had it all. The city looked a picture, the Páirc’s first full-house for a GAA game, and a feeling as we all walked out to the ground that this really was a defining moment for an entire generation of Cork hurlers. Losing wasn’t an option, but Limerick were in the way.
The first half was a tour-de-force by the home side – picking apart Limerick’s half-back line, getting behind them, mixing up their puck-outs. 2-15 to 1-10 at half-time.
Back came Limerick, as everyone knew they would. Seamus Flanagan ended up with 3-3. Cork kept rolling the dice, and handed Limerick a couple of gifts. Limerick were four up with four minutes to play, and everything we’ve seen in hurling over the last six years suggested this one was done. But Cork kept coming.
It was all decided by a Patrick Horgan penalty four minutes into injury time, the build-up to which was the most exquisite tension. He’d end the year the top scorer in the history of the hurling championship, but he never hit a more important score in his life. “Glory Days” on the tannoy, thousands of teenagers on the pitch afterwards ... and a summer that stretched out for Cork. They’d beat Limerick again and end up with nothing. That’s hurling, I suppose. Don’t miss your ticket in 2025. ― Ciarán Murphy
McCaffrey and Costello produce one more great moment for the books
Gaelic football, June 16th
“When are you going to just f**king retire?” shouted Kevin McStay to Jack McCaffrey afterwards, big smiles cracking both their faces outside the dressingrooms in Dr Hyde Park. McCaffrey bounced away cackling, his day’s work done in the 25-minute cameo he’d produced off the bench. “Seriously, just don’t answer the phone!”
McCaffrey had answered it that day all right, most notably in the frantic endgame when Dublin produced what we can probably now identify as their greatest team’s last truly great moment. With 30 seconds left on the clock, Ryan O’Donoghue had kicked Mayo into a one-point lead and now McStay’s side went full-court press on Stephen Cluxton’s kick-out. Dublin had done the same to them on so many occasions so why wouldn’t they do the same?
It would have worked too, only for one of the all-time high-wire scores in the history of the decade-long ding-dong between these two. Cluxton kicked long. Ciarán Kilkenny came out of the clouds with the clutch catch of the year before sending McCaffrey away on the Dublin 65. McCaffrey skated deep into the Mayo defence, trading passes with Colm Basquel before finding Cormac Costello, who crowned a man-of-the-match display by popping the equaliser through a keyhole-sized gap.
The particular maths of the Group 2 table meant that Dublin won the draw and Mayo lost. They finished level at the top of the table but because Dublin had gone medieval on Cavan and Roscommon, Mayo were pushed into second. They had to play the following Saturday against Derry and duly went out on penalties.
And yet for that afternoon in the Hyde, they were everything their people could ask them to be. They faced Dublin toe-to-toe, they were canny against the wind and scored freely with it. Adian O’Shea was outstanding, O’Donoghue was whipsmart and deadly, Donnchadh McHugh and David McBrien comfortably quelled the influence of Brian Fenton and Con O’Callaghan. In a middling year, who knows where the road might have taken them?
But Dublin had one last magic trick in them. It was a joy to be there to see them reach into their sleeve. ― Malachy Clerkin
Jack Kennedy crowned champion jockey at Punchestown festival
Horse racing, May 4th
The idea of “deserve” rarely counts in elite sport but no one can argue Jack Kennedy didn’t earn his status as Ireland’s champion jockey over jumps.
The former prodigy, only 17 when first winning at Cheltenham, and with a Gold Cup under his belt at 21, had been for some time regarded as a champion-in-waiting. Both injury and Willie Mullins’s number one rider Paul Townend kept getting in the way.
But after breaking his leg five times in an injury-ravaged career, the 25-year-old from Dingle finally got a run of luck that meant he went into the final five days of the season at Punchestown leading his rival by seven winners (122-115.)
That Townend was still odds-on to emerge on top with some firms underscored the power of the Mullins squad he could call on.
Townend had also the momentum of winning both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup at Cheltenham that season, as well as the Aintree Grand National. In all three legs of National Hunt racing’s unofficial Triple Crown, Kennedy rode the runner-up.
It was a classic head-to-head, even Cork v Kerry. But despite being left battered and limping by falls, Kennedy persevered to the final day. Townend narrowed the gap to two but no more. At the finish there was a new champion.
No one looked happier than Kennedy’s boss Gordon Elliott. No one looked more relieved than the man himself who’d said earlier that week: “It would mean the world to win the title for the first time after the things I’ve been through”.
That the new champion is now again on the injury sidelines having broken his leg for a sixth time underlines how fortunes can fluctuate in the toughest game of all. But he is always now Jack Kennedy – champion jockey. ― Brian O’Connor
More Major heartbreak for McIlroy, as silence speaks volumes
Golf, June 16th
For all of the exploits of the world’s two most dominant players – Scottie Scheffler, who won nine times, and Nelly Korda, who won seven – the flip side of hurt and pain brought its own rawness with Rory McIlroy cast as the central character.
The 124th US Open at Pinehurst No. 1 in North Carolina was McIlroy’s for the winning until it wasn’t. Instead, Bryson DeChambeau – the man with the initials B.A.D. attached to his yardage book sticking out of the pocket on his backside – stole in to take advantage of McIlroy’s travails down the stretch, the Northern Irishman’s putter betraying him when it most mattered.
Normally, after winning or, for most given the numbers game where only one of a 156-player field will raise the trophy, losing, it is customary for us scribes to get time in the mixed zone or outside the recorder’s hut with a player. Akin to a confessional for some, sounding boards for others, joy for just one.
Except, this time, McIlroy’s hurt was too much. He didn’t hang around to offer congratulations to Bryson; nor did he want to talk to media hacks, waiting like vultures for whatever morsels would be offered.
Instead, McIlroy hastily made his way to his courtesy Lexus parked in a space with a sign which stated: US Open Champion Rory McIlroy 2011. There would be no one adding 2024 for the 2025 visit to Oakmont. McIlroy’s car swung carefully but swiftly out of the parking lot and it wasn’t long before his private jet was departing the nearby Moore County Airfield and taking him away from further heartache.
In a year where he won four times and claimed a sixth DP World Tour order of merit, the silence of Pinehurst after once again coming up short in his quest for a fifth career Major – the drought going back to 2014 – spoke volumes. – Philip Reid
From the misery of conflict to joy in Dalymount Park
Soccer, May 15th
Turns out, a few days knocking around Phibsboro last May will last longer in the memory than riding the rails at Euro 2024 or witnessing Damien Duff guide Shelbourne to an unlikely League of Ireland title.
Bohemian FC’s chief operating officer Daniel Lambert caught The Irish Times by surprise when he flipped a query about Bohs versus Palestine into an invitation.
“Why don’t you sit in on our planning meeting?” he suggested.
Organising the game required plenty of goodwill from local businesses and the Irish government. Visas were fast-tracked for the 35-strong Palestinian delegation that was led into Dublin by sports minister Jibril Rajoub, who the Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz had just branded a “terrorist in a suit” for seeking Israel’s banning from Fifa.
“We are not trying to politicise the game,” said Lambert. “Is it a political act bringing them here? It is probably viewed by most people as being one, but it should not be. It’s a show of solidarity in the face of an increasingly hopeless situation in Gaza. It speaks volumes that Israel play in Uefa competitions [since 1992] and a senior Palestinian team has never played in Europe.”
Seeing the war and atrocities on television is one thing, hearing young footballers talk about daily life in the West Bank leaves an indelible mark.
“What we are doing here is so important,” said Charlotte Phillips, a Palestinian player born in Toronto, “because in Canada and the States we are unable to show as much solidarity as we can here in Ireland.”
On a sun-kissed evening in north Dublin, when the gentle breeze saw Palestinian flags unfurled, joy temporarily replaced the misery of conflict. Some 4,390 people paid into Dalymount Park, raising €80,000 for charity as a healthy sprinkle of athletes, musicians and poets created a festival atmosphere.
Róisín El Cherif sang The Fedayeen Warrior before Lankum’s Radie Peat responded with a pitch perfect Amhrán na bhFiann. I can’t remember the score but the Palestinian girls’ lap of honour was unforgettable. ― Gavin Cummiskey
Ireland pull off one of the great upsets to show giant strides being taken
Rugby, September 30th
Ireland’s 29-27 victory over New Zealand in the WXV1 tournament in Vancouver demonstrated that it’s possible to successfully inculcate a winning rugby philosophy while drawing from the disparate backgrounds of Sevens and 15s siblings.
Following on from Ireland’s first triumph in a Sevens World Series event in Perth, Irish 15s head coach Scott Bemand brought a handful of the group into the 15s squad, players like Erin King, later voted World Rugby’s breakthrough player of the year, Eve Higgins and Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe, while at the same time having to contend with the absence of pivotal players like Béibhinn Parsons and Sam Monaghan through injury.
That fusion of styles and qualities came together to produce a remarkable display that culminated in Ireland pulling off one of the biggest upsets in women’s rugby history and following on from their famous World Cup win over the Blacks Ferns at Marcoussis 10 years earlier.
Ireland outscored New Zealand by five tries to three, outstanding flanker Aoife Wafer, who has the game to be a global star, grabbed a couple, King also crossed for a brace while hooker Neve Jones scored her 11th in a green jersey. Ireland led at half-time but looked to have lost the game before King’s late intervention. Dannah O’Brien’s conversion won the game.
In considering the parlous state of Irish women’s rugby in the Test arena in recent years, Bemand, his coaching team and the players deserve huge credit for the strides that they have made to this point, not least in qualifying for the WXV1 tournament itself by finishing third in the Six Nations Championship, far from a probability at the start of that competition.
Next year’s World Cup now looks a little less onerous providing the squad continue to evolve, and part of that development process begins with the Six Nations earlier in the season. It has been a good year for the national teams in both codes. – John O’Sullivan
