Life through a new lens

BACK IN THE GAME Mayo and Connacht footballer Ronan McGarrity (right) pictured with Tyrone and Ulster footballer Conor Gormley at the launch of the 2007 M Donnelly Inter-Provincial Championships at Croke Park yesterday (Monday).  Pic: Sportsfile

Life through a new lens

Ronan McGarrity Interview
Frankie Jennings


RONAN McGarrity says that his battle with cancer has given him a new perspective on life and football. Addressing the media at the launch of the M Donnelly Inter-Provincial Championships in Croke Park yesterday (Monday), the Ballina footballer and basketball player said the experience had ‘changed’ him.
“It has been a rough couple of months but I have come through it,” he said. “There’s a lot of people out there worse than I was. I am one of the fortunate ones. We caught it early and got the treatment and hopefully it’s all behind me now.”
Speaking for the first time about the illness which kept him out of sporting action for three months, McGarrity said that Ballina Stephenites’ run to the county title had helped give him ‘a new release of energy’.
“I had a new hunger. It was like starting off the first round of the championship. I was kind of nervous and you wonder how people perceive you after your operation. The management and players were great. There was great fun at training. It’s been the best fun I’ve had in football for a long time,” said McGarrity, who was philosophical about the combative nature of the recent county final against Charlestown.
“You have to take the knocks, sure,” he said. “You can check the bruises, I still have them and it’s a week later. They had no sympathy whatsoever and that’s great. You can go out on the pitch and some people might have notions that ‘you can’t him hard because he has had a rough time – take it easy on him’.”
The midfielder agreed that his return to the Mayo colours for the visit of Cavan was an emotional occasion. Having told his team-mates that he would be back after his surgery, he had ‘lived up to that goal’. He was ‘very disappointed’ with his performance that evening but added that given what he had been through, ‘you don’t expect brilliance on the first day’.
“It was weird sitting there watching [Mayo] play,” he said of his time off. “When I was getting back training it was frustrating because I wasn’t at the same levels they were. I was very happy that I had a small part in the championship, even if it wasn’t as much as I would have wanted. It was better than nothing.”
The bookmaker paid tribute to the doctors and nurses who treated him at University College Hospital Galway and, stressed the importance of early detection in combating testicular cancer.
“It’s kind of embarrassing,” he admitted. “Once you find a growth you have to have it checked out. There’s an awful lot of people would be pig-headed about things like that. You might get an ache and forget about it, leave it. I was quite lucky in that I had people around me who told me to get it checked out straight away. I could have left it. A lot of people have done that.
”Rumours had gone out a week or so. I have a friend in the press down in Laois who rang me one night and said that the rumour was I had cancer and what was the story. I said I hadn’t told anybody yet, not even my family, so it was the best thing to do, to tell the team.
“We had been to an All-Ireland the previous year and I wanted to be honest with them, where I was coming from and what the story was. Otherwise people can fly off the handle saying the guy is dying. You don’t want that to go out in the press.”
McGarrity was the outstanding player on his return to the basketball court in Team Merry Monk’s one-point defeat to Limerick Lions on Saturday. But he explained that he’s ‘looking after’ himself ‘a lot more’ since his return to health.
“If I see a vacant day that I can take off from training I’ll do it,” he added. “We [Ballina Stephenites] had a league game on Sunday and I didn’t participate. Beforehand I was going at a hundred miles an hour. Nobody can do that. Once you have been going at such a pace for so long, relaxing is very hard, to do but thank God for Sky TV!”
McGarrity may feature in Connacht’s inter-provincial semi-final against Ulster in Ballybofey on Friday week. Despite a ‘disappointing year’ with Mayo, he insisted that ‘things are looking bright’ for Mayo.
“We’ve won an U-21 All-Ireland. Ballina won the club. The players are there. It’s just about getting everything right. We have good management, there are no complaints there anymore. The players just have to put in the work.