Lecarrow’s Olympic rower recalls ‘special time’

It is quite fitting that I catch up with Lecarrow native Dr Martin Feeley on the day that Ireland claims its first rowing gold as Paul O'Donovan and Fintan McCarthy power to victory in the lightweight double sculls.

Despite being up in the early hours to see the race live, he is still brimming with enthusiasm for their “fantastic achievement” by mid-morning, declaring that “it's beyond belief (for the Irish team) to come away with gold and bronze”.

He, more than most, knows what kind of work and commitment the Irish rowers put in to get to these glory days, having represented Ireland at the Olympics in Montreal back in 1976, rowed at the World Championships, and at the famed Henley Royal Regatta, the home of his most treasured success.

Growing up in Johnsport, Lecarrow, Dr Martin Feeley attended Glanduff National School where his father Hugh was a teacher, his mother Anita (nee Martin) was from nearby St John's. He later went to Marist College, Athlone, where he did his Leaving Cert in 1968.

“The Marist had a rowing team when I was there, but I didn't get involved. I had to cycle eleven miles into school and home so there wasn't much time for rowing,” he laughs.

Only taking up rowing in his second year in UCD, Martin believes he was very fortunate to get to an elite level after starting at such a late stage, something that's unthinkable these days.

He feels doubly lucky that there happened to be “a great bunch at the same time who carried me along” during what he says was an “unbelievable time”.

“When I started in UCD, to win at Henley it was just a dream. It was unheard of,” he recalls, saying he was so fortunate to be part of an amazing crew, the pinnacle of which was winning the unusually named Ladies' Challenge Plate in the Royal regatta in 1974 in the universities competition beating the best of British and European teams of eight.

Later in our conversation, he produces a bizarre fact that few would have guessed. “It's amazing the things that happen. There is one secondary school that produced two strokes of two crews that won in Henley Royal Regatta and that was the Marist College, Athlone. Myself and the other was John Macken who went to Trinity and won Henley in 1977.”

While he is not keen to talk much about his Olympics experience, believing it was “a disaster” that the coxless four team failed to progress to the final and were overtrained at the time, a report in Westmeath/Offaly Independent of July 23 in 1976 does reveal the pride of his father and the family pedigree in rowing.

The report recounts that his father Hugh, then retired from teaching, was an oarsman with Athlone Rowing Club back in the 1930s.

“I am very proud of him and I suppose it is a great honour to represent one's country at any level, but especially in the Olympics where the world's top sportsmen compete,” Hugh Feeley told the paper back in 1976.

“To get to the Olympics – to qualify is a huge achievement,” Martin concedes, stressing it requires huge sacrifice in terms of time and commitment and the margin between success and failure is so fine, and that's what makes Ireland's success in 2021 all the more impressive.

“To get there we did commit a lot and sacrifice a lot. The memory (of Montreal) isn't fantastic, it wasn't great we were overtrained and by the time we got there we were almost burnt out,” he remembers.

While the experience of representing your country was “phenomenal”, the Lecarrow native has very mixed feelings about the Olympics because he returned believing he had let a lot of people down.

“For me, Henley is still my biggest achievement. It was like Leitrim winning the All Ireland Final. UCD had never won it. It's the one I'm most pleased about,” he says of the 1974 triumph, something that was beyond their wildest dreams at the time after a punishing schedule of training twice a day along the Liffey at weekends and once a day during the week, something that wasn't really done at the time.

“It's four hard days of racing so it's all knockout and it's very exciting from that point of view. If you get to the Friday or Saturday that was your big hope,” he remembers of the rowing event par excellence along the Thames which drew hundreds of thousands of spectators over the course of the event.

With a different emphasis on academic excellence then to now, he says it was just about passing an exam, joking that he stayed on to do medicine so he could remain in UCD. He later went on to work as a respected vascular surgeon.

At various times in our conversation, he speaks tongue in cheek about rowing being like an illness, something sane people don't do. He illustrates this by saying he is still coaching the senior men on a voluntary basis seven days a week with UCD Boat Club, where one of his charges is Athlone's Andrew Carroll, who he describes as a “good guy”.

“These boys put so much in it's not just for the craic. It's a serious responsibility. They are making the ultimate sacrifice,” he says with rowing actually costing them money and time. “It's phenomenal what they do. There is a responsibility and duty to them as a result,” he stresses.

His tireless dedication was rewarded back in 2017 when the club surprised him with the inaugural 'Graduate of the Year' at UCD Sports Awards to recognise his voluntary work over more than four decades since his own graduation encouraging the next generation of rowing stars.