Willie McHugh
THE Hollymount Road Races are long an established annual happening in the athletics calendar. The inaugural race was staged in 1966. On Sunday next they celebrate the 50th anniversary of this prestigious and internationally acclaimed event.
John Treacy, the former world cross-country champion and Olympic silver medallist, will unveil a plaque entitled ‘The Running Man’ to commemorate 50 years of road running in the south Mayo village That the statue bears a strong resemblance to the late Tom Reilly in his running stride is apt. Hollymount Road Races were the brainchild of the Lehinch native and his brother Seán, who still lives in the home place.
As children they started running just for fun, as Seán Reilly explained when he reflected on 50 years of road running and athletics.
“Tom was a big influence on me,” he told The Mayo News. “We ran in the local sports as kids. We were winning the odd race, so that helped to keep us interested as we got older I suppose.”
Seán Reilly’s first big win came in 1963 and he still has the monetary prize in safe keeping.
“It was long before the era of professionalism and I got a ten shilling note for winning the race. When I came home I wrote on it ‘Mayo Abbey Sports 1963’ and I still have it. There were times I was short of the price of a dance or the pictures, but I resisted the temptation to spend it.”
In winter he trained nightly, running distances of 18 to 20 miles. People were bemused by his commitment.
“I remember one Christmas morning myself and Tom went for a run and a man we met on the road told people afterwards about the two lunatics from Lehinch he saw out running on his way to Mass.”
Alongside James Hennelly, Denis Murphy, Seamus Brannick and a few others, the Reillys were members of a Mayo athletics team who won cross-country medals. Seán won a Connacht gold medal in Ballyglass in 1966.
Tom Reilly went to work in Dublin and studied at night where he obtained a BA in UCD. He represented the Irish Universities team, winning a 3000 metres championship in Belgium. He obtained a Master’s Degree and became the first ever Professor of Sports Science in the United Kingdom at Liverpool Polytechnic.
He became a close confidant and mentor to John Treacy, who ran and won the Hollymount Road Race in 1981. Over the years other renowned international runners and Olympians like Tim Hutchins, Hugh Jones, John Woods, Malcolm Prince, Neil Fowler, Eamonn Coughlan, Danny McDaid, and Barry Knight ran in Hollymount.
Tracey studied at Providence College in Rhode Island afterwards and, through letter-writing, he remained in close contact with Tom Reilly. Tom’s wife Jill kept those letters and she will present them to Tracey when he visits Hollymount next weekend.
In Hollymount they were setting their own pace. In a 1990 publication to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Hollymount Road Races, Seán Reilly remembered a winter’s night in the mid-1960s when a group of youngsters gathered in Hughes’s shop. Someone suggested going for a run around Kilrush.
Shopkeeper Tom Hughes said, even though he was the oldest, he would beat any of them. Seán overtook Jim Kennelly in the final sprint, but Tom Hughes was already home before them. The clay on his shoes suggested he might have short-circuited through a Kilrush farm to the finish line. But whatever the result, perhaps that late night road race was the unofficial forerunner to a Hollymount race that has now stood the test of time.
In 1970 women began participating in Hollymount Road Races. Hollymount’s Yvonne Fallon was the first runner home closely followed by another local Mary Hynes with Maura Quinn from Kilmaine coming third.
It’s a community event with all in the region lending a hand with the organising. Local families provide accommodation for the visiting athletes. It’s the Hollymount hospitality the runners remember best. Last week Seán Reilly spoke to Joe Scully from Dublin, who ran in Hollymount in 1966, and it’s to that generous streak Joe Scully referred 50 years later. “It was because of your mother’s generosity I didn’t perform as well as I’d hoped to, because she gave me such a big dinner before I ran,” he recalled.
Seán Reilly cites that involvement from the community as crucial to the success of the event.
“People open their homes to the runners when they come here and because of that hospitality lasting friendships are formed. Runners get to sample the Hollymount night life in the village hostelries too. We take the event itself serious and all rules are adhered to, but the fun element is just as important, and that’s probably what has kept it going all this time.”
“Keep running the race,” was Tom Reilly’s last request to his brother Seán shortly before he passed away. In Hollymount they continue to do that. ‘The Running Man’ will run forever more.
