Local mans unusual retirement trip

“Sensible people go on a cruise when they retire,” observed Gerry Callaghan, “but I’ve never been remotely sensible.”

Instead the 64-year-old Glasson resident is marking the end of his career by embarking on what he called “an exercise in insanity.'

On Tuesday, he began a marathon bicycle journey from Clonmacnois to Santiago de Compostela, in the north of Spain, and back. It’s a round trip of about 3,500 kilometres by road and should take him approximately two months.

A fortnight ago, Gerry sipped coffee in the Sheraton Hotel and spoke engagingly about the grand adventure he was about to begin.

 
“Why do it? I haven’t really worked out the answer to that one,” he said.
“I’ve sort of reached the end of 50 years of a working life so it’s time to do something extraordinary. I said I’d go and do it, write a bit, and take a few photographs. Perhaps it’s an opportunity to bore the grandchildren for the rest of my days!”

Gerry’s journey begins with a cycle to Cork, where he’ll get the ferry to Roscoff, on the North West Coast of France.

“The plan is to then cycle down the west coast of France and join the great pilgrimage route on the Spanish border, at St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and then follow the Camino Frances, all the way across the North of Spain, to Santiago de Compostela,” he said. “Most people fly back or get the train back, but I won’t do that.”

He intends to cycle back along the Camino del Norte to Santander, where he will catch the ferry to Plymouth. In the UK, he will pedal to Bristol, Cardiff, and then Fishguard, for the ferry to Rosslare, and then homeward to Athlone.

When asked if he was excited about the journey, he replied: “I’m scared out of my wits! There’s no reason to be, because I’ve done research upon research. I can tell you the distances between places, and changes in elevation, and all sorts of things like that. So I’ve done the homework.”
A Sligo native, Gerry moved to Athlone in 1980. He worked for ANCO (which later became FAS) before joining Ericsson in the late 1980s. He left Ericsson in 2013, after spending over 25 years with the communications technology firm, and subsequently “picked up odd bits and jobs here and there” but said his working life was now at an end.

He is married to Sue, who works in Athlone IT, and they have a daughter, Sarah, who is a research scientist in Oxford, and a son, Peadar, who teaches in a University in Korea.

How does his family feel about his upcoming trip?
“I’ll always quote my daughter, who once said: ‘eccentricity doesn’t run in this family, it sprints!’” he laughed.
He has long been an active cyclist and is part of the local Shannonside Cycling Club.

“I’m ‘the elder lemon’ in the club. I get to look after the ‘newbies’ and people who are just starting to cycle.”
Discussing the physical demands of his upcoming trip, he said: “I can cycle 100km in one day without it bothering me in the least. I can do that sort of thing for two days or three days. I’m not sure that I can do it for 30.

“But, if it’s bothersome, if I’m getting tired and the wind is strongly against me, I could always be tempted to stick the bike on the train. I might ‘chicken out’ (and take public transport) in France, or I might chicken out on the Camino de Norde coming back, but I am going to cycle the 800km of the Camino Frances from one end to the other.”

He guesses that he’ll get to Santiago de Compostela by mid-May. The Camino to Santiago “has been in existence for the last 1,000 years and has had a great revival in the last 20 years or so. Lots of people do it, for all sorts of reasons,” he said.

While Gerry is doing the journey on his own, he will “undoubtedly pick up some buddies” along the way.

“In the cycling world there’s a network, called ‘warmshowers’, and what you do is trade off. You register, offer a bed to travellers for the night and they offer one to you. It’s very much like couchsurfing.

“At this stage I have (accommodation) lined up as far as La Rochelle, about half way down the coast of France. Once you’re into Spain there’s no problem with accommodation because there are albergues (pilgrim hostels) about every 10km or so along the way.”

While the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) is often undertaken as a Christian pilgrimage, Gerry is an atheist.

He said he wanted his journey to include visits to what he called “an atheist’s sacred spaces.”

“There are places in Ireland that I think are sacred spaces, yet at the same time are not religious spaces,” he said. Examples he cited in this country included cillíns, where unbaptised babies were buried; the quay in Cobh from which the transatlantic liners sailed; industrial schools; Magdelene laundries; and refugee direct provision sites.

He said Spain has “more than its share of these places too.”
Visiting such sites, he concluded, was “a way of paying respect to people that there was never any respect paid to.”

* Gerry has created an online blog where he will share updates from his cycling adventure. It can be found at: carigeen.wordpress.com