BY KIERAN McCARTHY
‘MY favourite learning from this whole thing which I cannot recommend highly enough: dream big and find people like mine who support and encourage those dreams. If you’d told me when I was a kid getting hammered up and down the Ilen river by my heroes and friends that I’d have two Olympic gold medals I still would have believed you, because of them’ – Fintan McCarthy.
We’re not short of plaudits to direct towards Fintan McCarthy, and one of those is that his sensational success hasn’t changed him. Two Olympic gold medals. Three World titles. A former World Rowing Men's Crew of the Year award winner. Enough medals and accolades to fill a lightweight single scull. For all this glory, his feet remain planted on the ground, those deep roots set in West Cork that keep everything in perspective.
It takes a village to raise an Olympian, and in a social media post after the latest golden entry in his rowing story, Fintan saluted the people close to him who helped him dream big and have supported him on his journey. They gave him the belief he could conquer the world – and now he has, several times over. The role of his family and his friends, Skibbereen Rowing Club’s influence, these are some of the crucial pieces in a jigsaw that enabled Fintan to develop into a world-class rower. His journey to Olympic immortality started at home.
Local hero Nicola Tuthill with Micheala Cronin and Clara Grey at the homecoming in Kilbrittain.(Photo: Donie Hurley)
As Fintan’s local community made his dreams achievable, it’s a story repeated all around West Cork. In Kilbrittain on Monday night, Nicola Tuthill received a hero’s welcome as she landed back home after her first Olympics – her 16th-place finish, at just 20 years of age, was one of the Irish stories of these Games. Her local community pulled together to show how proud they are of Nicola’s achievements on the world stage, and their support in her journey has helped the Kilbrittain woman become one of the rising stars of Irish athletics.
Bandon Athletic Club members were out in force too, the incredible club that had two Olympians at the Paris Games, with Phil Healy to be lauded on Thursday night at home in Enniskeane and Ballineen. Again, the community showing their appreciation to their local hero, and their role in these stories needs to be celebrated too. With Nicola Tuthill, it was a neighbour, Kevin Warner, who first coached her, taking her to the stage where she could throw over 60 metres before extra input was needed. With Phil, the late Catherine Duggan and also Liz Coomey were huge influences in her early years. Local people who go to extraordinary lengths to support local athletes in their efforts to be the best they can be, whatever that level may be.
That support is key here because it provides the structure, the coaching and the possibilities as we’ve seen over the years that while your passport might say rural West Cork, there is a route to the grandest of stages.
Laura Guest and Darren Sweetnam are two rugby trailblazers, the Clonakilty woman and Dunmanway man who proved local rugby players could play for Ireland. Bandon’s own Conor Hourihane has shown West Cork kids there is a pathway from this region to the Premier League and international level. Skibbereen’s Eugene Coakley was the first rower from Skibbereen Rowing Club to compete at an Olympics (Athens 2004) – and it was Eugene and his generation that Gary and Paul O’Donovan, as kids and new to rowing, wanted to race down the Ilen River. Bandon Athletic Club’s Breeda Dennehy-Willis ran for Ireland at the Sydney Olympics. These are some of the locals who have paved the way for the current generation to keep West Cork sport in the spotlight.
It’s the local communities and sports clubs that also offer kids an outlet for their talents – and the range of sports in West Cork should be applauded too. GAA heartland, it’s home to top players like Brian Hurley, Luke Meade, Libby Coppinger and Melissa Duggan. While GAA is king, it’s important to have other choices too. Take Fintan McCarthy – admitting football wasn’t for him, he told Ilen Rovers he was U10 when he was actually U12 so he wouldn’t have to play with his own age group! He needed a sport that suited him – and turned to rowing.
‘It’s not that I wasn’t sporty, but I hadn’t found anything that I liked or was good at, so when I finally did find rowing it was motivating because I could see that I could get better and how I could get better. That’s what brought out the competitiveness then because I knew that I could be good and I wanted to show people I could be good,’ Fintan told the Star in 2021 ahead of winning his first Olympic gold medal. Rowing was the sport that suits this Aughadown man, while hammer throwing is the sport that Nicola Tuthill excels at and athletics is the sport that Phil Healy loves, and their talents have taken them to the Olympic stage, carried on the shoulders of their communities which have backed them all the way.
It’s why Nicola and Phil’s homecomings this week are so important, and why the rowers’ homecoming in Skibbereen on September 1st will be an unmissable occasion too, because it’s the celebration of local, West Cork success stories that, as Fintan McCarthy says, have allowed the next generation to dream big and then realise those dreams. Look at Skibbereen Rowing Club's Aoife Hendy and Jessica Crowley who represented Ireland at the Coupe de Jeunesse in the Czech Republic last weekend. Aoife won a silver medal in the single scull and Jessica won gold and bronze in the women’s coxless fours. They’ve seen rowers from their club win Olympic medals, so it all seems possible. Kids in Bandon AC will dream of becoming Olympians. And they’ll receive the support they need to help them reach their levels. The wheel won’t stop turning.
