Two-time Olympian Danny McDaid to launch Donegal Sports Star Awards 

Athletics legend Danny McDaid will launch the 2023 Donegal Sports Star Awards on Monday evening in the Mount Errigal Hotel.

Awards Chairperson Grace Boyle said it was fitting that Danny McDaid should have the honour after a glittering athletics career and he is still involved with Letterkenny AC at 82 years of age. 

“Danny has done it all in athletics reaching the pinnacle of his career in the sport by representing Ireland at two Olympic Games and captaining the Irish Cross-Country team at nine World Championships," she said. "He has a very long and loyal association with the Donegal Sports Star Awards going back to the first ever function in the Milford Inn in 1976 when he won the athletics category.

Danny McDaid said it was an honour to be asked to launch the awards. He said: “I got an award the first time it was held in 1976 so it’s a great honour now to launch the awards for 2023. I did the presentations in 1984 when I stepped in for Maeve Kyles and then was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011. It’s a great event and I have been to it every year except for the times I was away at athletics events.

Danny McDaid was the Overall Donegal Sports Star Award winner in 1979. He has also been honoured with the Freedom of Donegal. Danny still keeps fit with a combination of jogging/walking up at Corravaddy and farming. The obvious highlights were the two Olympic Games Marathon Finals and the nine times captaining the Irish Cross-Country team.

“When I look back now to get to two Olympic Games was some achievement coming from Donegal," he said. "The sacrifices I had to make at that time to actually get to Munich in 1972 and especially Montreal in 1976 were huge. It’s a different way now for the current athletes. Captaining the Irish team to a World Cross-Country silver medal in Limerick in 1979 in front of 25,000 people was special. I was the 11th and second counter that day after John Tracey."

That achievement by an Irish team was massive and led to them being named ‘Legends in Sport’ by a Sports Writers of Ireland Committee chaired by soccer journalist Peter Byrne. In the week leading up to that historic success in Limerick a former athletics star Noel Carroll writing in the Sunday Independent called on the public to be there for what he predicted would be a special day in Irish sport. He wrote that you may never see the likes again and how right he was as what the Danny McDaid led team did that day hasn’t been repeated in the intervening 55 years.

Danny McDaid was not only a marathon and cross-country runner he also competed in track and field and was on an Irish team that went to the Europa Cup. In the 1970s and 1980s he juggled his day job as a postman, and family life while competing in athletics at an elite level. He regularly got a call on a Wednesday to link up with a team going abroad on the following weekend. Danny then set about getting the Friday and Monday off to make the trip. That meant maybe taking annual leave to make the trip but those were the sacrifices that an amateur athlete had to make in that era.   

McDaid is also a four-time national marathon champion. As well as being a founder member and stalwart of Letterkenny Athletic Club, he ran first in the colours of Cranford AC and then in Dublin with Clonliffe Harriers. He was the first Irishman to cross the finish line at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Danny was captain of the Irish Senior Cross Country team from 1975 to 1981.

The running track at the Letterkenny  Sports and Leisure Complex is named in his honour. The Danny McDaid 15k, which begins and concludes at this track, is also named after him. Married to Kathleen (née Gillespie) the couple have three daughters. Orla, Niamh, Ciara and a son Darragh.

Danny McDaid follows in a list of big local sporting names that have launched the awards including Patsy McGonagle, Martin Carney, Jim Sheridan and Ollie Horgan. The launch of the 2023 Donegal Sports Star Awards takes place in the Mount Errigal Hotel on next Monday evening,  January 8, at 6pm. As part of the launch, the winners of 1983 will be honoured to mark the 40th anniversary of their successes when the presentations were made in the Milford Inn.