Image credit: World Rowing
Up until recently, when one thought of Irish sporting heritage, rowing was not the first thing that came to mind. For much of Irish history, rowing has taken a back seat to rugby, Gaelic games, sailing, boxing and even its coastal cousin. But, slowly and surely over the past couple of years, results have steadily improved. Olympic medals have been won for the first time in history, and Ireland is actually being discussed as a top tier rowing nation. To the casual observer, this change seems to have happened overnight, but in truth it’s been a project years in the making. So, how did Irish rowing go from relative obscurity to the potential powerhouse it is today?
Rowing in Ireland faces a unique problem with recruitment that many other small nations face: too little people and mass competition with other sports. With a population of just over seven million people on the island of Ireland itself (five in the Republic of Ireland and just under two in Northern Ireland), the selection of potential rowing age juniors is already small to begin with. With the prevalence of GAA sports (Gaelic football and hurling) plus the popularity of rugby and soccer, and rowing’s expense as a sport, that quota shrinks considerably. Still, there is always someone somewhere who has talent enough to mount a challenge.
A brief history
During the post war period, the Irish offering at the Olympics and Worlds Championships was mediocre at best, with the men’s eight of 1948 finishing second in the repechage. Up until 1952, due to political wranglings and pressure from what became Rowing Ireland, the IOC recognised the right of athletes from Northern Ireland to row for Ireland (they were previously only considered for GB). There then was a period between 1948 and 1964 where Ireland had no international representation at all, except for a men’s coxless four at the European Championships in 1964 which failed to place. Arguably the first true success of Irish rowing came from one of the first true Irish rowing greats: Sean Drea. With rowing infrastructure at home lacking, Drea attended St Josephs University in the US for college and took his single on tour of the major regattas of the world. He won the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley Royal Regatta three times on the trot from 1973-75. Drea also became the first Irish rower to place at an Olympic Games, finishing seventh in the Munich Games of 1972 before winning a seminal silver medal at the 1975 world championships. This was the first medal an Irish rower representing Ireland had achieved up to that point.
Against the odds
With the one man powerhouse that was Sean Drea having proved to the world that Irish rowers could stand with the best and come out on top, more and more Irish boats begin to appear at both Olympic Games and European and World Championships. In eight years, the single boat had become four and Irish rowing looked well set to take it position at the forefront of international rowing. But then the 80’s happened. Hyperbole aside, Irish crews still did relatively well during this period, but the promise of the early 80’s was replaced by a series of solid performances. A highlight of which was the lightweight men’s eight who came fourth at the 1984 World Championships.
As the 1980’s drew to a close, the 1990’s saw the rise of Irish lightweight rowing as a global force. In years 1990-2000, Ireland won eight medals at the world level, eclipsing the one medal in the previous two decades. The first Irish world champion, Niall O’Toole, was crowned in the lightweight men’s single. The 1990’s also saw the first Irish crews sent to the Coupe de Jeunesse, providing a pathway towards a more concrete junior pathway to the senior team and by extension a more competitive team. In the annuals of Irish rowing history, 2001 was a bumper year with three World Championship gold medals, which remains one of the best team performances in Irish rowing history. So, Ireland can win European medals and World medals, but they couldn’t seem to get the one that counted. Enter Paul and Gary O’Donovan.
The brothers from Skibbereen
The brothers that would one day set the internet and world rowing a-storm grew up in the tranquil surroundings of West Cork, in the village of Skibbereen. Their father, Teddy O’Donovan, was a rower at Skibbereen Rowing Club and so naturally they both gravitated towards it. At the time, and even more so at the time of writing, Skibbereen had gained a reputation as the most successful boat club in the nation. They were having only founded in 1970 but since then have gained 195 Irish Championship wins, more than twenty ahead of its older more established brethren. The boys quickly became successful, gaining Home International Rowing Regatta representation for Ireland, and then making their senior debuts for the national team at the 2013 World Cup II at Eton Dorney. Three years later, on a sweltering day in Rio de Janeiro, the O’Donovan brothers did something that no other Irish crew had done before. They won an Olympic medal, silver in the lightweight men’s double. With Claire Lambe and Sinead Jennings having placed sixth in the women’s lightweight doubles event, Ireland was forced to reckon with the fact that rowing was now once of its mosts successful Olympic sports.
Looking to the future
Winning a medal for the first time at an Olympic Games is an astounding achievement for any nation, but to truly make winning a habit, several things are needed. You need athletes to stick around, you need them to get faster, not get injured, and also have the funding in order to train year round. The last of these has certainly been true in the past two Olympic cycles, with rowing now one of Irelands best funded sports. If the world was in any doubt that the performances of Rio were aberrations, or once in a generation athletes, the performances since then have put that to bed. One of the most successful Irish world championships in history happened in 2019, with two golds and a silver and a bronze. A record number of boats qualified for an Olympics where two medals were won: and for the first time one of them was gold. There was increased participation in rowing in secondary schools and universities at home, in numbers never seen before. Then Rowing Ireland had an equally successful post covid campaign, with their 2022 world championship results equalling that of 2019 in number, with two golds and two bronzes coming home from the Czech Republic.
And so that leads us to the present. The Irish rowing team selected for the Paris games is the largest and arguably the strongest ever assembled, with another one or two medals looking fairly likely in this coming Olympic regatta. The story of how Irish rowing became the powerhouse that it is today is a reflection of the hard work and single minded determination of nation that worked with sheer grit to get where it is today.
As author and rowing historian, Michael Johnston said about the 1948 men’s eight “They lost their two races, heat and repechage, but they held The Thin Green Line. And, they brought Ireland into the world of real international rowing for the first time.”
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