It Occurs To Me: 50 years of Glenree Sports Club

Glenree Sports Club was formed on Tuesday, October 30, 1973. 

The meeting took place in the house of our neighbours, Tommy and Teasie McBride, in Umlagh, Carrigart,  in whose house we often crowded as ‘wanes’ to watch Sooty on BBC. 

This Saturday at 3pm in the Carrigart Hotel sees the launch of a book celebrating 50 years of the multi-medal winning club. 

Some months ago, founder member Myles Gallagher asked me to contribute to it. So, as you’ll see below, I travelled to Tullamore to meet the esteemed John Cronin, proud Downings man and president of Athletics Ireland. 

The book is chock full of facts, memories and anecdotes chronicling the half century of one of our most successful athletic and soccer clubs.

Danny McDaid, Paddy Marley, Patsy McGonagle and Teresa McDaid write about their Olympic experiences over a half century. Sean O’Rourke of RTÉ fame, who has a long association with the parish of Mevagh and owned a house in Rosapenna for more than a decade, writes about Donegal sport. 

There are a couple of articles about the legendary Jimmy McGrory who scored a record 550 goals for Celtic, a record never to be equalled in British football.

As youngsters, we played our football on the Lea on the Carrigart/Downings road and one of the articles remembers a legendary clash there between Mulroy Stars and a Jimmy McGrory Celtic selection. Another article, written by Reba Fisher (nee Carre) tells the story of her father buying the house in 1945 that Jimmy McGrory built in Downings.

Reba has the handwritten letter by Jimmy telling her father he will sell the house to him. She also has a telegram from Jimmy telling her father how much he will pay for it.

The house was in the possession of the Carre family for over 70 years. I remember Jim Carre with great affection as the conductor on the local Lough Swilly Bus, along with driver Johnny Birney.

Columba Boyce writes about John McGettigan (1882-1958) from Glenree who emigrated to the USA in 1907. There he became one of the most celebrated musicians and singers of his day. 

A classical scholar graduate, he taught Latin and Greek in Brooklyn and Pittsburgh. He formed a music group called John McGettigan and his Irish Minstrels and such was their popularity that their recordings outsold those of the legendary Irish tenor John Mc Cormack.

By the way, well done to the Downings ladies on their Ulster title…in sport, Mevagh definitely punches above its weight!

                              From the Pacific to the Atlantic Drive

“It all goes back to Glenree, Frank…and to Myles Gallagher.” John Cronin is proudly showing me around the amazing Tullamore Harriers facilities, the first privately owned synthetic track of its kind in the world. 

As we depart, an ‘old hand’ greets him at the door and smiles, “Hello Mr President.” John has been the president of Athletics Ireland since 2021 and on the day of his appointment, it coincided exactly with his first race for Glenree AC some 47 years before.

It has been quite a journey for the Dooey/Downings man and it was equally an amazing journey for his parents, John and Catherine. John was a native of Mallow in County Cork, and emigrated to the USA on board The Washington Star from Cobh in 1947. 

Two years later, Catherine McFadden from Dooey left Southampton on the same ship bound for America, and in time would meet and marry in California. In 1968, when John Junior was eight years old, the family, including siblings Pat and Nora, returned to Downings.

He has very happy memories of growing up there and attending Scoil Naoimh Bríd, before getting his secondary education at Falcarragh Community School. His brother Pat had gone to Falcarragh before him and had immersed himself in athletics there. 

“I suppose I just followed my elder brother when it came to my interest in running. As regards football, I couldn’t hit a ball out of my road”, he laughs.

I tell him how my own father (a former Downings player and coach) was fond of the phrase “he couldn’t kick snow off a rope”, which summed up my own football prowess. John represented Falcarragh in county, Ulster and All Ireland schools championships and he never looked back. 

Frank Galligan with John Cronin, proud Downings man and President of Athletics Ireland

On Easter Sunday 1974, in the company of many friends, as I was making my way to see Finn Harps play St Pat’s in the FAI Cup Final in Dublin, John was running his first race in Carrigart for Glenree Athletic Club, in the Donegal Road Championships and was on the winning Glenree under-14 boys team.

I tell him that although I left Carrigart in 1972, I always kept my eye out in the press for the local sports news, particularly as our friend and neighbour Brian McBride from Umlagh was achieving great success on the track with Glenree.

Along with John and Pat Cronin, Brian and Gerry Gallagher made up the relay team which won the 1977 4x100 and 4x400 metres Senior Ulster Title. John remarks how he is chuffed that Ireland is now excelling at relay running with the success of the Sophie Becker, Rhasidat Adeleke, Phil Healy, and Sharlene Mawdsley team. 

He himself won gold, silver and bronze medals in various disciplines as an under-15/16,17 in cross-country and 800 metre. Subsequently, he was selected as the BLOE Sports Star of the Year for Donegal in 1976, a year in which he won the Donegal Novice Cross Country title 1976, Ulster Senior 800m titles and Ulster Senior 4 x 100 and 4 x 400m Ulster Senior relay titles. 

“I have so much to thank Myles Gallagher for” he explains, “not only a great coach but a superb administrator and organiser. Before the days of computers, Myles had it all sorted.”

John travelled the five miles or so from Dooey to Glenree for training by running or thumbing but it was a lift from a Dooey neighbour that would change his life. 

Jimmy McBride is the last surviving member of the famous Downings 1957 team, and the 90-year old now lives in Cootehill in Cavan, where he was a stalwart of the local GAA club.

On September 19 1982, Jimmy drove his young neighbour all the way from Downings to Tullamore, where John was starting a new job with Burlington Industries. He had graduated from UCG with a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) degree and represented the University in Intervarsity cross country and Track and Field Championships between 1979 to 1982. 

He competed in the gold medal winning cross country team in 1979 and later was elected captain and chairman of the club. 

On the same day Jimmy McBride drove him to Tullamore, Offaly shocked Kerry by beating them in a historic All-Ireland final, but when John reported to work the following day, the company - in common with half the businesses in Offaly - was closed! 

He laughs: “Some years later, I happened to meet the legendary Offaly manager, Eugene McGee, and I thanked him (and Seamus Darby!) for giving me my first day off!”

He joined the famous Tullamore Harriers, competed for the club and served as PRO, captain, and chairman twice, the second term for twenty-one years.

Like his mentor Myles, he became a very able administrator, was awarded by Offaly Athletics with a Life Presidency in 2020, a Lifetime Contribution to Sport from Offaly Sports Partnership and was elected chair of Leinster Athletics and elected to the Board of Athletics Ireland  in 2012.

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He then went from strength to strength with many strings to his bow, both at European and world level, and as he admits: “One of my proudest moments was when I  was appointed to the Jury of Appeal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, 2021.”  

Since then, he has been elected as a member of the European Athletics Technical Delegate panel and appointed as technical delegate, European Championships in Munich, 2022. 

He and his Galway born wife Dympna are very happy in Tullamore and as he shows me around the various celebrity photos and awards in the Harriers HQ, he beams with pride but reminds me: “It all goes back to Glenree.” When he finishes up by sharing a funny football story with me, I see the Dooey humour bubbling underneath the presidential gravitas. 

“There was a famous under-15 international soccer match played here in the mid-80’s. Roy Keane was playing for the Irish team…he was substituted at half-time.” We both agree that that manager deserved a gold medal for bravery! 

From the Pacific shores to the Atlantic Drive, to racing with the Glenree hares and running the Harriers, ‘President’ Cronin has had an incredible  journey…and it ain’t over yet.