Is this the worst 5-Mile race in Ireland?

Runner and YouTuber Daniel Toal took part in this years Joe Duffy Clontarf 5-mile race in Dublin and posted a video of his experience afterwards. He asked the question... "Ireland’s Worst 5-Mile Race?". Looking at the video, the race seemed a bit of a horror show.

First some background. 

The Clontarf Half-Marathon & 5-mile is held twice a year, once in July and once in November. In 2024, the November half was the 4th largest half-marathon in Ireland and the July edition was the 6th largest half for the year.

The most recent race in the video was held on Saturday the 5th of July 2025. There was a total of 5172 finishers between the two events, 3819 finishers in the Half-Marathon and 1353 finishers in the 5-mile.

The Half-Marathon started at 10am and went off in four waves. The 5-mile race started at 10:30am and again started in four waves.

The map above shows the start. The Half runners head east towards Bull Island and Sutton before turning back. The 5-mile course as you might expect turns around a lot sooner.

Analysis... The first red flag here is the start time of 10am and 10:30am. The course is on a walkway in Dublin on a Saturday morning and it should have started a lot earlier. Daniel is one of the lead runners in the 5-mile race and this screenshot from the race shows the walkway full of pedestrians. 

In a properly organised race, this should never happen as the potential of a collision is high. An early start would have avoided a lot of this.

The next problem was that the front of the 5-mile race ran into the back of the fourth wave of the half-marathon.

Again, in a properly organised race, the back of the half should have gone past the 5-mile turnaround point so the two races couldn't overlap.

As a race progresses, it behaves like a long snake and the further it goes on, the longer it gets. The next problem is that the frontrunners in the 5-mile go around the turnround point and then face all the slower 5-mile runners going out.

As you can see from the image above, there is no clear path through the oncoming traffic. Note that the image above is not from a photographer standing on a bench, it's the view of a runner heading towards oncoming traffic at 3:30/km pace.

At least in the section above, there was the option of running on the grass.

In some sections, there was no option but to run through the oncoming runners.

Video... After reading the description above, you should have a good idea of what transpired. Now, have a look at Daniel's video...

To put this race in context, the entry fee for the half-marathon was €55 and it was €36 for the 5-mile. That doesn't include the additional fees for online registration and the Athletics Ireland one day permit.

Doing some rough calculations, the organisers would have taken in a gross figure of about €300k for this event. As the vast majority of runners are not members of a club, Athletics Ireland would have taken in the best part of €10k.

In conclusion... Is this the worst 5-mile in Ireland? You can make up your own mind but note that this event is held twice a year and gets huge numbers. Most people taking part probably felt that they had a great time.

I think everyone can agree though that the organisers could do a lot better. If I was working as an insurance broker and we covered this event, I'd have serious concerns.