Guest Post: BILLY CELEBRATES HIS 84th BIRTHDAY – WITH A RUN! ...by John Walshe

BILLY CELEBRATES HIS 84th BIRTHDAY – WITH A RUN!

People mark their birthdays in different ways, but for Midleton-man Billy Griffin there was only one way to celebrate his 84th this Wednesday – by going for a run. And what better place to do it then around the historic town of Cloyne where Billy went to primary school and made his First Holy Communion back in the mid-1940s.

Born at Ballymaloe on March 2nd, 1938, his family moved to Midleton when Billy was 12. Commencing running in the year of 1956, it was an iconic performance two years before that first whetted his appetite: “In 1954, Roger Bannister broke the four-minute-mile. Although we had no television or anything at the time, when we went to the cinema the Pathé News would come out at halfway and they would show highlights of that famous achievement.”

As there was no club in Midleton, Billy joined the one in Carrigtwohill. “I remember cycling to a sports meeting in Carrigaline as well as up to Glenville, and cycling home again,” he recalls. He also did a bit of cycle racing in his early days and remembers winning a two-bar electric heater at a sports in Nohoval (“although only one bar worked!”).

Billy pictured on his 84th birthday with a hat marking the first Ballycotton ‘5’ in 1977 when he was one of the 34 runners who took part

Training for running at the time was all in the fields in Midleton. “We lived on the Rocky Road near Castleredmond and I used to have a fierce problem in the night-time but then I got the brainwave of putting on a beret and tying a flash-lamp or torch to it,” he says.

Billy started working as a lorry driver with Rohan’s in the 1960s, where he remained for over 20 years. “At that time I used to train at six in the morning, although I often went out at half-five. When I went to work for John A Wood we started at seven, so I had to get out at half-five then to train. I couldn’t go out in the evening because we were working late, and anyway you would be tired when you’d get home.”

In 1973 - along with future Olympian Liam O’Brien - Billy was a member of the Midleton team that won the Cork County Novice and Intermediate Cross-Country titles. He was also one of the pioneering 34 runners who ran the first Ballycotton five-mile race in 1977 and later completed three Dublin City Marathons.

Described last year as a “club legend” by Midleton AC registrar Danny McCarthy, like all runners Billy greatly missing the many local races over the past two years. One of his favourites was the Cloyne ‘4K’ Series so it was appropriate that he would again take to that route - known locally as ‘The Commons’ - on his 84th birthday, easily covering the four kilometres in just over 30 minutes.

During the winter Billy does his training four days a week in the gym and is now looking forward to the spring evenings and a few 5kms on the road. Aside from his running, most of the day is taken up with the bright and beautifully-kept garden that he and his wife Ann tend to at their Brookdale East home.

“The gardening keeps the mind going,” explains this remarkable man who is certainly a living example that at the age of 84 a life-long passion for the sport of running certainly keeps the body in excellent shape as well. 

A list of previous guest posts from John Walshe can be seen HERE