BLE Inter-Counties Cross Country in Fermoy - Dec 1979

Derek O'Keeffe recently put a video up on YouTube about a Cross Country race in Fermoy in 1979. Some might recognise the faces in the video which was held over 40 plus years ago.

Leave a comment if you recognise any of the faces.

This was probably the heyday of cross country running as the numbers taking part and watching are way bigger than would be seen in recent times.

Update: John Walshe kindly sends on the following information...

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Thanks to the Denis McCarthy archives (and the following month’s Marathon Magazine), the short video shown is of the BLE Inter-Counties Cross-Country & BLOE Championships which took place at Fermoy on Sunday December 16th, 1979.

Held on the course used for the Grange International C-C on the Dublin side of the town, the video must have been taken by the local promoting Grange-Fermoy club as several of their young members and mentors are shown.

The senior race over at least 7.5 miles (12km) was won by John Treacy in a time of 39:59. The Waterford-man was then a double world champion, having won the titles at Glasgow (1978) and Limerick (1979). With Gerry Deegan second and Ray Treacy (brother of John) fourth, Waterford easily won the team title on 64 points with Limerick second on 96 and Cork third on 113.

First Cork athlete was local man John Hartnett in third and the other scorers for the Rebel County were: Donie Walsh (6th), Mick Walsh (18th), Richard Crowley (20th), Mick Lawton (22nd) and Pat O’Riordan (34th). Frank O’Meara – later to become a two-time world indoor champion – was back in 46th, one place ahead of another man who would go on to greater things, Liam O’Brien.

The women’s race was won by Mary Purcell from Deirdre Nagle and Jean Whitson, all Dublin. Purcell had a wide range of accomplishments, from competing over 800m at the 1972 Munich Olympics to winning the Dublin Marathon in 1983. In seventh place was another Dublin athete, Carey May, who would go on later that year of 1980 to become the winner of the inaugural Dublin Marathon.

The Cork team who finished second at Fermoy were: Catherine Hourihan (4th), Marie Buckley (8th), Marion Lyons (10th) and Valerie O’Mahony (14th).

The men’s junior race went to Andy Ronan from Wexford ahead of future three-time world indoor champion, Marcus O’Sullivan, only the third man after John Walker and Steve Scott to run over 100 sub-four-minute miles (total of 101).

Cork finished second in the junior race behind Dublin with O’Sullivan (2nd), John Hurley (12th), Joe O’Sullivan (15th), Martin Farmer (24th), Kieran Stack (29th) and Chris Lawor (30th). The man who provided the date and venue of this event from all of 45 years ago - Denis McCarthy - finished in 60th position of the 110 finishers.

And just for the record, last Sunday week Denis picked up another bronze to add to the near-100 county medals he has won when finishing third in the M60 category at the Cork Masters C-C in Bweeng.