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‘Injury Time’ with Paul Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 26th Of July 2024 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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‘Injury Time’ with Paul Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 26th Of July 2024 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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‘Injury Time’ with Paul Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 26th Of July 2024 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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The Roundstone Regatta, sponsored by Conmore Abbey & Gardens, has a long history and includes sailing and cork racing. The Galway Hooker Association helped revive the regatta in the late 1970s to promote traditional boats in Ireland. The races take place along a marked course and the start is signaled with countdowns. Roundstone was selected as a venue due to its ideal location with facilities and advantageous viewing spots. The regatta wouldn't be as good without the sailing boats. The core committee, including Peter McDonagh and John Lean, work hard to set up the regatta, including setting the course. Spectators enjoy the excitement of the races and sailing can be quite spectacular to view. The Galway Hookers Association acts as referees to ensure the rules are followed during the races. This program is kindly sponsored by Conmore Abbey & Gardens, 095-52001. Good evening listeners, you're welcome to Injury Time, the final Injury Time program of the month of July 2024. I'm joined in studio by Michael King and we're going to be talking about sailing and cork racing, matters maritime shall we say. Michael, delighted to have you in studio. Thanks Paul, delighted to be here. We're being assisted here on technical by Linda, so thanks Linda in advance. Michael, the Roundstone Regatta, which has a long standing history going back many many decades, took on the sport of sailing for the first time ever in the late 1970s and I suppose the catalyst for that was the revival of the Common Hookery, the Galway Hooker Association. So just prior to commencing our chat, I'm going to read this little piece which outlines that revival. It was 1978 and it was for the purpose of promoting the restoration and preservation of traditional boats in Ireland, especially the Galway Hooker, in its various forms. And those forms would be the Bodmore, the Lachwad, the Glowchug and the Poocon that we'll talk about later. As well as that, it provided a means of communication between people who shared a common interest and in its first annual newsletter, which was published in January 1980, the aims of the association were elaborated in greater detail as follows. To promote interest in hookers, poocons and glowchugs. To supervise and control racing and regattas. To preserve existing boats and to revive the classes. To define the class specification for each of the three classes. To encourage any other activities which would promote these aims. In the intervening years, there has been a great revival of interest in these boats accompanied by the rebuilding and recommissioning of old craft along with the construction of new. And then they have a little piece here simply called the races. Once utilitarian boats, hookers are now used as leisure crafts. The skills of boat builders and crews can be appreciated during the summer regattas. The races take place along a course marked out on the sea by buoys, around which competing craft must turn several times in order to complete the race. Before the regatta commences, three sound signals are given, which act as a countdown to the start of the race. Where different classes of boats are racing against each other, the second sound signal indicates the start of the race for the slower boats. And the time and minutes between this sound and the final signal indicates the applied handicap for that day. While waiting for this final signal, the skippers keep their boats moving to evaluate the race course and conditions that day. The races are held in Galway, Baldury and Claddy, and all over South Connemara, Rosseville and Spigel, Kilkeiron, Letchermullen, Carrow, Rosmuck, Cashel, Roundstone and two of the Aran Islands, Inishmore and Inishman, are traditional venues for the summer regattas. So that's just the intro piece from their website, Michael, and I suppose your particular interest is on the Roundstone regatta. Can you tell us, Michael, why you think Roundstone is one of the selected locations for this series of races? Why did Roundstone get selected in the first place? Well, I guess, going back many years, there was always cork racing in Roundstone, and while it was always a regatta, sailing brought another dimension to it and added attraction. And for me, the key word for why is location. The harbour is in the middle of the village, you have all the facilities, you have pubs, restaurants, shops, ample parking, and two minute walk and you're down the harbour, and there are different spots along by the top of the shore where you can get more advantageous viewing positions, and anybody that's keen to do sailing, that's what they will do. You won't find everybody in the harbour, but they're stuck in some corner with their binoculars, keeping an eye on what's happening out the bay. So are you the Monaco Grand Prix of the summer regattas, Michael? Regattas, Michael. Without stamps. We were talking earlier about spectatorship, Michael, so tell us what it's like as a spectator. You're not a sailor yourself as such, would that be fair to say? No, I'm not a person of the sea, but I love the buzz of the sailing and the cork racing, that's why I wouldn't be involved otherwise, it gives me huge satisfaction. A lot of visitors from overseas come, as an example a couple of years ago, a couple came from Switzerland and the husband wanted to get out on the Galway Hooker and managed to get him out, and the boat he was on actually won the race, and it was like winning an Olympic medal when he came in, he just was blown away with the whole thing. That's kind of just a little snippet from a spectator's point of view. You were saying to me earlier, Michael, just before we came on air, that it's kind of like there are two shows, one show is put on by the committee to set it up and then there's the actual show, can you expand on that just for the listeners? There's two shows in town, one, the regatta wouldn't be as spectacular or viewing friendly as it would be without the Galway Hookers. In other words, the regatta wouldn't be as good today as it is without the sailing boats, there's more than hookers in it, there's load shucks in it as well, and probably the sailing boats may not survive as good if there wasn't the likes, not just Ronson Regatta, but regattas all over the West Coast. If all those regattas weren't happening, I wonder what would happen to the sailing boats. Where would they be, Michael? Probably lying in a field on the top of the shore somewhere. Some of them, not all, some, because it's difficult to maintain. The cost of keeping a sailing boat in the water is, I don't know exactly, but I know it's expensive. It's tough going on hard, really, living people. So you've worked at committee level over many, many years. You tell me you're back four decades, back to the early 80s anyway. Yes. And you've got a core committee of men throughout those years. We're going to give some of them a mention now, Martin. There's Peter McDonagh and John Lean in particular. Do you want to talk about those two men for a minute? And again, this is the first show where you actually set the whole thing up. Can I talk, Martin, about what kind of work do you as a core committee, with auxiliaries obviously helping you out as well, what do you have to do to set up the first show, to actually set out the course, everything? What's involved in that? You mentioned the two lads. PJ, I don't know how long he was on the committee, but his dad, Paddy, came back from England in 1983 and revived the regatta. There was always a regatta with different committees and they'd go for three or four years and then it would drop off for a couple of years and a new committee would set up. But Paddy came back in 1983 and he revived the regatta and it's gone from cent to cent ever since. He left it in 2015 and we miss him dearly, especially on Regatta Day. But PJ came on board and his brothers, John and Christopher, and my brother Martin does a lot of refereeing on the weekends and my brother Stephen comes home from Boston every year. That's the highlight of his trip is for the regatta. And your son Seamus is also there. Seamus is mad enjoyed it. He had a match on Sunday and he was humming and hawing whether he would or he wouldn't, but he went and they won and then he came back and he enjoys the regatta twice as much. So what kind of work do that group of people do in terms of having everything ready? Well, the farming, you have to, for the sailing, the Galway Home Crusaders set up the course because they know exactly how to set it up. It depends on the conditions, what direction the wind is coming from and what time to start it. It depends on high tide and low tide and all that. For the rowing, PJ and the boys will put out the course on probably Friday evening. We have two courses for the rowing. One short course for the farthest band and the one man and the juniors and the other is a long course for the bigger races. And we'll come back to the cork racing in part two. So that's your show set up and then the second show is actually just the viewing of the race and is it fair to say that sailing can be quite spectacular to view? Oh, absolutely. And if that is the case, in what way? I wouldn't be from a sailing background myself. Well, the course is set up that the starting and finish line is just out from the harbour, maybe a hundred yards out from the harbour. And they get their warning shots at the hooter five minutes before the race starts. So everybody knows now that the race is starting in five minutes and the next hooter will be for whatever class is going first. So everybody is jockeying for position to get into the right position and they're checking the watch, they're calmed down, they cannot break that line. If they break that line by one second, you're back around and start over again. At this stage, the rest of them are two or three hundred yards down the bay so you've lost. It's like Grand Prix, if you go before the red light, you're gone. In the race itself, you're jockeying for position. Can I just ask, have you ever seen any boat disqualified at the start? Not disqualified, but they'd be told you broke the line, you go back. If you don't go back, you're gone. They would probably sail the course because they'd say, it makes no difference now anyway, we've missed our opportunity. So who's in control in terms of administration? There must be a referee or something. Well, the Galway Hookers Association will have a referee appointed and probably two on the boat. And they have a rig and they follow the race. They start the race and when the race is on, they're following it around to make sure that everybody is towing the line and abiding by the rules. And they're up at the finish line when the race is coming to a conclusion. And I presume they have to be audible to all the sailors, so they probably have a loudspeaker or... Well, they have their rules. But would they be communicating verbally with the... Oh yes. If anybody steps out of line, they'd be told out and they'd just steam over them and tell them that they've crossed the line or whatever sanction needs to be imposed on them, they'd be told. So have you ever seen any boat actually ejected from a race because they felt foul of the referee or didn't follow instructions? Not in Roundstone, but you hear over races throughout the year that maybe some boat had been disqualified for maybe not going around the buoy or missing the buoy or maybe did something they shouldn't have done. So is a sailing race of that nature like a straight line race or is it more of a loop? Well, in Roundstone, it's more like a triangle. A triangle, OK. Yeah, kind of down towards Inishleckin, if you'd be familiar with the area. I know Inishnee, I wouldn't know Inishnee. Yeah, down past Inishnee and then you go so far up the Berthuck, you go around that buoy and back down towards Inishleckin again and up to Roundstone. Depending on winds, I think the race on Saturday were just short of two hours, but I've seen where races took three hours long. If the wind was slack, they'd be slower. If a nice breeze, you'd move quicker. So is there a set amount of personnel that are allowed to make up the team in the sailing boats or can that be any number? I'm not fully aware, but normally in the smaller boats, you may have three people and in the bigger boats, you might have five or six in the barge moor. Now, they're big boats, so you'd need probably all hands. So the barge moor is the traditional Galway hooker? Yeah, they're between 37 and 42 feet, would be the length of those. And is it fair to say that of the different sailing races on view, that the barge moor is the big one? Is that blue ribbon the same type of sailing? Probably, from a spectator's point of view, it would be. But from a sailor's point of view, every category is the blue ribbons. Everybody wants to win their own race and in their race, this is the race because there is sailing in it. But from a spectator's point of view, it's always, you get a fork up. What time are the hookers sailing? The closest thing is what time are the glotters? I think when they see a boat with a red sail and a picture, they don't know what length it is, they assume it's a Galway hooker. That's the impact that the Galway hooker has. Maybe you can talk for a couple of minutes about the, there's five different categories of race, so there's different sized boats. So maybe just give the listeners an idea of the differences between the boats in terms of how they actually look. Well, it's sized more than, like the Glotterjog is 23 feet long. And I think the Glotterjog moor, and I stand corrected on this, but I'm just trying to give a little bit of information that I can, is between 24 and 26. The Glotterjog moor then is between 26 and 30 feet. And the Labalt then is up to 34 foot long. And the Galway hooker then is between 36 and 42. So are the races run in a way that they start with the smallest boat and then they work up, so with each race then you're going to a bigger boat? Well, what we did this year, we ran the Glotterjog boats on the Saturday because of two reasons. One, there's a lot of the minutes and there's two classes in it. There's a League 1 and League 2. I don't know what the difference is, but I would assume that some of them are faster than the other, and it's unfair to have a fast Glotterjog against a slow Glotterjog because there's no competition. So they have two leagues going on. So there was 11 boats on Saturday. And on the Sunday, we put the Glotterjog moor out on the Sunday this year for the first time because there's only two big boats, two Galway hookers, there's one Labalt, and there was five Glotterjog moors. So that was five, so there's these nine boats. So if we go back to the Saturday first with the Glotterjog yokes, did all 11 race simultaneously or did you have heats like you'd have in athletics? No, no, no, they all raced simultaneously at the same time. So you had the two categories racing simultaneously, so you had two races being run as one kind of thing. And then equally on the Sunday, did all the different size of boats go out together? Yes. But the hookers started first because they would be faster, obviously. There's no point in having a bunch of small boats, and then you have two hookers plowing down the bay with a bit of wind, and they're catching up on them, so they let them off first. Now with the intro piece I read out, maybe I misinterpreted, but there appears to be a type of race where different classes of boats can race against each other, and you use a handicap system. But you don't do that. No, but that used to be the case, but when was that written? Oh, that's probably been for many years. Because, let's say, four or five years ago we had eight Golden Hookers racing. We had two on Sunday. I know there are two more, but for various reasons. People have different commitments on different weekends, and they may not be able to make it, and sometimes it's hard to get crews for the bigger boats. And then you say to me, where are the other four? The other four are where we started, they're probably in need of repair. That's a huge financial cost. I'm not sure, but I'd say if you were to make a new Golden Hooker today, you're talking about $150,000 to make. And these are ordinary working people that lives in Connemara, that owns all these boats. Do you think we'll ever see one of them across the way here in the Furniture and Restoration Conservation Unit, Michael? I mean, would it be better to see it there than to line in a field if it comes to that? But these men are artists themselves, aren't they? Many of them at restoration. Would a lot of the sailors be... Yeah, there are a number of sailors that would be able to repair boats, but the boat builders are getting scarcer by the day now. I'd have seen an odd program on TG Cahir. I remember watching one in regards to the Golden Hookers, the Tony, and some of these legendary boats. The competition is fearsome between certain crews, I imagine. Oh, yeah, it's like Gaelic neighbouring parishes would be bragging rights, and it's the same in the sailing. Everybody, they go out there, they're out to win. They're out to enjoy themselves, but they're out to win. It's highly competitive. What happens, like being in school, what happens in the water stays in the water. Look, if you go to a football match, you'll see the players give expression to the various skills, hopping and soloing and skills of evasion and kicking and so on, passing and so on. What are the standout skills in sailing? You're watching a sailing list, admiring a particular crew in terms of how they're managing their boat and they're steaming ahead, let's say. What are the things that cause you to have so much admiration? Conditions. Wind, what direction the wind is coming from. High tide, currents. You're watching, you know, who is probably your nearest rival for silverware. So you're watching what move they're making. Are they making the right move? Are we making the right move? Are they a step ahead of us or are we a step ahead of them? You're American. It's like American. In a football match, American ties, you stay close by just to make sure that you're in the right position. You know that the hooter goes, you have five minutes or three minutes and there may be a hooter there for one minute and now we have 60 seconds to get into position, you know, and make sure that there's other boats in the bay as well. Are they in my way? Am I going to be able to get around these? What's the best position to be in to cross that line on the second? It's a bit like manoeuvring. It kind of reminds me of Formula 1 cycling. It's almost that kind of a... But, of course, the referees, I'd say, have to be very skilled as well and very vigilant. There's probably a bit of... Would there be gamesmanship going on? Would there be... Oh, yeah, you'd be trying to... I'm sure you're trying to keep your rival in the wrong side of the wind or you make sure you're on the right side of them, I suppose. Pardon the pun, but taking the wind out of a person's sail to get the windy side of your nearest competitor to get the jump at the start. I mean, all these referees now are keen sailors themselves, so they know exactly... So they're extremely sharp. Oh, yeah, they know what's happening. Whether they apply the letter of the law is another thing. I wouldn't be sure about that. Yes, yeah, yeah. We were talking earlier too about, just informally before the programme, about tragedy in relation to sailing, and you were telling me of two incidents of tragedy. Well, it just took into my mind, where one happened in Cairo where there was an incident where the boat went down and the poor man on board went down with it and the poor man, they got to him. He was alive and they got to him, which I think the damage was done and he just passed away. And his brother has a boat named in his memory and he won last Sunday, which I'm sure was very moving for him. Yeah, great boat people. And, you know, I suppose when that happens, it probably gives you maybe a bit of happiness on the day that you did this for your brother. And there was another incident down in Canberra many years, 20-plus years ago, where I think they were returning from the festival in Canberra and they got caught in the bad weather, windy weather, and the boat went down and the man from Cairna lost his life coming home. Johnny Sanjack, I think was his name. I hope I'm right. Do the man justice, but these things happen. You know, it's like any walk of life, or down the road, anything. There are others, but they just, when you asked me the question earlier, it just came to my mind. But in terms of your own festival, it's been, shall we say, plain sailing? Oh, plain sailing. Thank God, fingers crossed. But like that, you'll have yourself well covered. You'll have insurance in place in the event of... Michael, we're going to break in a moment now, and you have a song picked out on a sailing theme, shall we say, and then we'll return for part two where we'll focus very much on the corrux. But just last point in relation to the sailing. You said around, on average, about two hours to do a race would be an average length of time. Yes, average, yeah. What length are we talking? I'd say six or seven miles per lap, I would say, roughly around that. And I suppose, would I be correct in assuming that the protagonists on board, they have to have serious levels of physical fitness? Oh, yes, indeed. If people are working with the sea most of the time, they would know exactly what, and they're prepared for any conditions. Once it's safe to sail. They won't sail. You can't sail in a mock craft warning, and they won't sail. They have their own guidelines on that. Actually, just on that point, were there ever any years under your watch on the committee where you had to actually, where the regatta didn't go ahead because conditions just didn't allow it? Oh, yes. Yeah, it has happened. So would that have been a complete cancellation or would you just have rescheduled? Reschedule, reschedule. And did you always manage to reschedule and get it done? Yes. Probably more often than not, the rescheduling would be from lack of wind. We've had that situation. Where there'd be no wind at all, slack cam, and you'd probably run it on during the week, maybe the Friday evening, and then the boats could move on down the coast for the next event the weekend. But we've had situations where we had to cancel with small craft warnings, which you cannot sail. Yeah, I understand. I'll hand over to you now, Michael, just to introduce your song, and we'll just take a break for a bit of music. So if you want to introduce it there, Michael. Okay, the song I've chosen is The Nazarene by John Bjug, who is a keen sailor himself, sails the MacDarra, and I've heard it many a time, but I think John Bjug makes the nicest job for me. I am a con, a man, a man I was born to be free I love the beauty of the land And the magic of the sea I heard the stories of great men Who sailed the seven seas And I learned the lore of an ancient foe And their love for the Nazarene A hunter on the mountainside A strapper on the sea I love to chase the mountain hare So a hound it would be The Pucon sails to race the spray Bringing bounty from the deep Not all the gold the world could hold Could buy that life from me One night as we had stretched our nets And the storm had increased And driving mist that was so thick Your hand you could not see The gates of hell had sucked us in And we were doomed it seemed In the darkest hour before the dawn I called on the Nazarene Come listen, all good-hearted men Wherever you may be Our Lord is just as good today As He was in Galilee Come lend a hand and help Him out To feed His lonesome sheep You'll have everlasting happiness In the home of the Nazarene . . . There came a day it blew again No boat could go to sea I sat me down and a train of thought Came rushing back to me My brave old mates with whom I sailed And harvested in the deep Had sailed away to the great beyond And were now with the Nazarene Now all had changed and the past was pain But I'd reared my family My loving wife and her little child Were sleeping their last long sleep On my native shore where the wild waves roar I scanned the glistening sea I hauled my boat upon the shore And I followed the Nazarene Come listen, all good-hearted men Wherever you may be Our Lord is just as good today As He was in Galilee Come lend a hand and help Him out To feed His lonesome sheep You'll have everlasting happiness In the home of the Nazarene Come listen, all good-hearted men Wherever you may be Our Lord is just as good today As He was in Galilee Come lend a hand and help Him out To feed His lonesome sheep You'll have everlasting happiness In the home of the Nazarene You'll have everlasting happiness In the home of the Nazarene Welcome back listeners to part two of Injury Time and I'm in studio here with Michael King and we're talking, we've been talking about sailing and we're now going to go and talk for the rest of the programme about well, the Roundstone Regatta and in particular cork racing, both within the regatta and beyond Michael, we're going to go back back a long way, back to 1899 just to start this section that you tell me you actually saw Yeah, I remember seeing a letter that was written by the committee at the time looking for sponsorship in the whatever establishments were in the village at the time but that was dated in 1989 and it came out of a house that was being republished in the village when they were knocking it down and this bit of paper surfaced but I don't know where it went after that I would love to get my hands on it but one of the few things I didn't When you told me that earlier I was just blown away because I had no idea that that level of tradition was with the regatta, that it went back that far Yeah, and further because they say where did the cork racing come from originally? Well the story goes, and I'm inclined to believe it that when they were building Roundstone back in the 1800s, 1824 because this is the 200th anniversary the sand for the building came from Inishlackin so it had to be transported by boat and cork would be the main one so at the time, the lads were the men at the time were filling their sand and they said, you know what, let's have a race and that's where it started that's what's said, and you know I'm buying into it Yeah, I'd be inclined to as well Michael it might have been as simple as that It's not just because it just so happened that's when Roundstone, I mean there's not too many villages along the coast Well here we are 200 years later and you're here for Roundstone and it's part of the reason I asked you to come on the programme as well, just celebrating 200 years and you've just connected the 200th year with the very beginning and the cork racing and it's all interlinked like that's a lovely story and there's no reason why that wouldn't be true Let's just talk about different types of corks for a minute, just for the listeners again and the likes of myself that wouldn't come from that tradition how many different types of corks are there and what's the real traditional one? You have the six-hour canvas cork which is three people with two hours each person so that's a three, six-hour standard cork then you have the what we call the timber racing corks which are owned by individuals like yourself or myself who have a cork and them lads take great pride in them because they're all different colours we have four of them on Sunday blue, green, white and grey they were the four colours it looks magnificent on the day the standard corks are all black tar, paint, black in colour I've never seen a cork any other colour than black so obviously I've never seen a timber one Now, the canvas cork is slightly changed we now have the fibreglass and it's gone a tiny bit away from tradition and the reason for it is that every time you have a race or you have a close encounter at the buoy an oar can often go through the canvas and you have a hole in the canvas and then you're patching and repairing whereas the fibreglass can take a lot more it's more endurable and it can take more physical contact which there shouldn't be anyway but as a term there always is it's hard to avoid at times but it's only a slight deviation away from it and then you have the Nivog which is the carry boat it's canvas based and it's for four people each person has two oars each so you have the cork, it's for three people and the Nivog, it's for four people So we'll jump forward now from 1899 to 1994 and the formation of Cwesta Lorn at Gorachie I'll just tell the listeners the significance of that It was getting very competitive and there was things happening that probably shouldn't be happening and we wanted to tidy up Danny Flaherty from Clarendon was in America based in New Orleans and he was around and he was keen in the rowing and this kind of stuff and he got a group of people together and they formed a committee called Cwesta Lorn at Gorachie back in 1994 and that committee kind of took over the responsibility of organising dates for festivals because sometimes you would have two committees looking for the one date and you would try and bring the two committees together Cwesta Lorn, try and sit down and sort out a date, sometimes it was difficult but we always managed to get around in some form or another and set up kind of rules to control the racing and get referees, which there wasn't there used to never be referees there would always be a safety boat following the races but it was kind of a free for all and got referees on board and got a set of rules drawn up and we implemented them as best we could like any sport, nothing is perfect nothing is going to please everybody but there was some sort of control that somebody was able to make a decision and say, you were right or you were wrong so regulation really can you give the listeners an idea of some of the key rules within said rules the more important ones to ensure that there is a proper ethos you have a fair starting line where every boat is the same for instance from the first marker in other words the line is parallel if you break within 200 metres of the starting line, you restart the race within 200 metres the boat on the inside of the course has a right of way at the buoy so there are no lanes no lanes, no now when I say right of way you're supposed to give them the opportunity to get around and you're not going to sit there and say, off you go lads you're competitive but clean you're not allowed to touch pulling oar off another boat you're not allowed to catch another boat or push it in any way, shape or form you're not supposed to touch any other competitor or leave a hand on anybody so no foul play no foul play you're an experienced referee in your own right in the cork racing so how does a referee operate in the sailing they're out on a rib you're in a cork the same cork as the others? no, the working class cork a good safety boat that can plough through the water and is your cork engine driven? yes, and you put yourself in a position where you're watching two or three or four boats whatever, if you think that the situation is going to develop, you're going to be right tucked in behind them and you know who's making the wrong move and you'll just correct them, you'll say whatever number, keep out to the left or keep up to the right, or you're closing in don't do it you get a warning, you get one warning and then disqualification but, like in any aspect of life you make a calculated decision and you say, well if I throw them off in the first morning, now I'm going to ruin the race but I'm going to referee this as best as I can to keep the oars people happy to keep the spectators happy there's nothing worse than it doesn't give me any satisfaction than disqualifying somebody but if it has to be done, it has to be done so you have a lot of discretionary power in terms of how you manage situations really yes, without abusing it but that's for the good of the sport there's nothing worse than somebody coming in halfway through the race what happened, or disqualified and over the years Michael, would Roundstone be considered to be a regatta where the ethos is beyond reproach, and it's good, clean sport, highly competitive but, you know no funny business, would you have a good reputation in that regard? Absolutely and there's in my book, there is absolutely no favour in my word treat everybody equal and everybody the same. People love coming because they know they're going to get a good race a fair race and if something happened, like in every sport somebody's not going to be happy and they're going to have a grievance which they will probably say to you because they think they're right but if you can have a conversation with that person and point out to them why you made the decision 99 times out of 100 they'll accept it and they'll say you were saying to me earlier, Michael that the viewing that the referee has is superior to what the oarsman himself can actually see, because he's in the full throes of rowing so you have a better overall perspective, don't you? You're going forward but you're looking in reverse Yes whereas the referee is going forward and he's looking forward he can see things happening that the oarspeople don't realise that they're doing something wrong and they think they're right I asked you earlier about the essence of a top class sailor, you'd be admiring someone in full flow in sailing same question now Michael in relation to cork racing a cork racer on the top of his or her game what is there to admire? No, I never rowed Ok People tell me, what do you know about the sport? They might be right, but we keep ploughing on with this as well as having the strength to do and fitness to do what you're doing it's one thing to have it in the arms and in the body Physical prowess is not enough in itself Upstairs as well you need to know conditions, winds current, shallow, deep you know where the marker is even though you're back is two a lot of people will point the head of the boat towards the marker and the guy in the stern will take a landmark off the land behind him so you're keeping that mark behind you with the mark in front of you you know where the bow is but you're watching the people around you so if he's going to go this way or they're going to go that way well they can, but I'm going this way So vigilance seems to be a key element Yeah, knowing your bearings like a lot of people will say what happened, I couldn't see the marker or I got my bearings wrong or I kept too far up or I kept too far down Somebody said to me on Sunday they lost a race the Sunday before we won't mention any names but he said I think we made an awful boom on Sunday I said why, what happened? We got too far out and we got caught and by the time we got back on track he said the damage was done Local knowledge is a big help Would it be fair to say that some of the competitors in the Roundstone Regattas every year have a much better chance of winning than others because of their level of local knowledge of the day itself? Everybody thinks they can win and also like at a marker then going around the bow the situation can develop or you can have a bit of a tank and it's a tight race and if the first two get into a situation the turbo, if they're cute enough, they'll say let's keep out of trouble here lads and we get a break and if they get a break and if they're any less handy, they're gone It's going to be hard to reel them in It's all about doing the right thing Timing? Timing is everything. The right thing at the right time So it's very tactical and it's very strategic I tell you and fitness is a big key in it I mean this is for the people that are competing they're very... Do you want to give a couple of the local guys a mention there? I know Christopher Day was successful by all accounts he must be a good oarsman Oh my gosh what a powerful block of a man absolutely and he's not that long at it but he has everything He won the single oar, didn't he? Yeah, the single man kind of takes on its own course that somebody comes along and they'll win the single man for five years and then somebody else comes along and it's like anything in life no matter how good you are, there's always somebody better comes along and takes over the mantle and Christopher now has won it the last two years but Owen Horner won it before him from County Clare and he won it four or five or six years in a row That's how things... And there's also a lad from Roundstone isn't there? Yeah, Conor McDonagh is just... he's not qualified yet but he's he's in his apprenticeship he's about 19 years of age a good, big, powerful young fella He was second in the one man and he made the final of the senior I thought that was great, the two west Connemara lads were first and second in the one man I was just giving out the results there last Monday night so I noticed that Things go in cycles and a good future ahead of him keeps his feet on the ground and go out there and do the business And do these lads train? Conor trains down in Rosmuck with lads He rose with two lads from Rosmuck in the senior so he goes down there maybe two evenings a week, maybe Tuesday, Thursday or something like that, and they race on the weekend And I presume Christopher is training as well Conor, I mean Conor Yeah, but I presume Christopher Day is training He rose with Carrow they won the what I call the Blue Ribbon event Yeah, we might just move on to that Michael just to give the listeners the schedules we know in the sailing we spoke about earlier there were five different races in the different classes so it's something similar in the cork race so if you just want to tell the listeners just the sequence of how the day's events Well we had eight finals you had the men and women's and men's and evoke which is the four person boat then we had the timber races which is your own cork that you bring along the men and women race the one man race and what I call the two Blue Ribbon events is the ladies and men senior canvas cork because go back in time again years ago you used to have timber race and corks and they'd all bring their own there'd be one big final you could have seven race or ten boats in a race and everybody would bring their own and everybody was always trying to make one better than the next but the way they were made the dimensions are all the same exactly the same so there's no difference in any of them and just on the schedule what I noticed when I was giving out the results was certain places in certain counties so Doonbeg in Clare in West Clare and Maherese in Kerry for example and you can kind of see where the tradition is and the other word that jumped out to me was amalgamation you know combinations and amalgamations maybe a Clare oarsman and a Connemara oarsman going you know combinations so I suppose is it a case of all these areas trying to just keep their proud sporting tradition alive and they have to maybe join together as crews to do that for the moment I'll give you an example, I just did a few stats this morning on stuff and in 2012 and 13 we had the All Ireland both years, but one year was weather disrupted it spoiled it really like there was 14 senior men's crews those two years and we're down now for the last three years, this year we had six men's teams, last year eight and the year before that four so there's a decline in teams and this brings me on to the point that you brought up, you see Kilrush, Connemara Kerry, Clare, whatever there isn't enough people in the local villages to make up a team so then they'll hook up with somebody else and make up a team and they call them double trouble bar names just to get their own little village named and that's the reason for that because less young people are involved in it, and I guess the reason for that is there are so much distractions I mean technology everybody now has transport, every young person now has transport they can go wherever they want to go when I was young there was something on everywhere you couldn't get there now every young person has a car and there's nothing to go to so I suppose the same mitigating factors in relation to other sports apply for car racing and sailing and the water sports as well equally but now in saying that, the juniors this year for the last few years we were having trouble getting juniors, you might have got one team and they'd be so strong that they'd be in at the pier before the others had gone around the boys and we had put the names into a hat and draw them out of a hat that suited the younger people who couldn't get a team but it didn't suit the people that had a team and there was a conflict of interest there so this year now we've gone back to the old traditional way of coming to our own team so there's 4 or 5 junior teams there I wanted to say junior Michael, that's under 18 it's healthier than it was so there's growth at underage which will give people cause for optimism going forward just coming back to the committee you've been on that committee founded in 1994 you've been on it for a number of years and you were telling me at an earlier juncture that you have in your ownership 4 Courts do you want to just tell the listeners how that works about affiliation and so on maybe 20 plus years 21 years ago we applied for funding to get our traditional boating in Frank Fahey was the Minister for the Marine at the time and we formed a committee called Faeilse Máire and that cooperated to go with Hooks Association and the Cushland Aghori together well you went together and we got funding, a lot of safety equipment for the sailing boats and we got 4 Courts and 2 trailers, funding for those and what the Cushland Aghori have taken control of those and what happens is that every festival that wants to get in on the point system can avail of those Courts for the weekend and you pay an affiliation fee of 300 Euros towards having the use of those Courts, but the committee of the day are responsible for collecting those boats at a certain location wherever they may be and returning them to that location the following week just 2 quick things there Michael you alluded to a point system there so just for the listeners like the sailing regattas that we talked about earlier you get so many points depending on how you place and then over the 9 regattas whoever has the highest points would be the winner same applies for the Courts yes, first place 10 points second place 7 points third place 5 points and fourth place 3 points and then over many years then and you said earlier that the founder of the Cushland was the man from Ardmore he was resident in New Orleans yes and maybe that was a major factor in the prize being a trip to New Orleans whoever won the league they would get a trip to New Orleans out in September and then Hurricane Katrina or whatever hit New Orleans a number of years ago and wiped it out and then he moved on to a lake Lake Charles he would have the races and like everything it ran its course and kind of died away and we just put up small prizes now for the winner of the league they get something in recognition for their achievements at the end of the year you were also telling me that about 8 years prior to the formation of the Cushland 94 around 1986 there was a prize, there was a trip to Boston even before there was a race in Letter Mullen back in the 80s they used to have some clubs around Connemara dovetailed with the Boston Rowing Club and they put up a prize and whoever won on a specific day they'd get a trip to Boston and in 1986 my brother Martin along with the Butler brothers Martin and Walter they won the trip in Letter Mullen which probably was a bit of a shock to everybody at the time surprise results and I was delighted because I made the trip with them myself and Colman Green, a friend of mine he must have been the coach cheerleader maybe my brother Stephen went that was in August 1986 and he's still there he's dead but still comes home every year for the regatta huge support for the regatta and great help so really to have outright success be it in sailing or in cork racing you have to be a model of consistency over several races in regattas consistency is the thing there's always a pattern it's like any sport where there's an accumulation of points there's always a pattern but it's pretty tight this year now the field has levelled a bit so it's up for grabs do you expect the overall winners this year to come from Connemara or will they come from Kerry or Clare or Donegal they come from Connemara because the strongest part of the rowing is in Connemara at the moment like since we formed the Custodial we brought cork racing to Bourtonport and Donegal Killie Beggs the River Moy in Belna a few years ago which was brilliant by the way we had it in Westport for a few years but the marina set up now has kind of put the eye wash on that we had it down in Dingle, the Maharees Clare, it's in all of the Arnhem Islands, Dublin and it was all over Connemara it was in the lake at Wormcross it was in the lake across from Pettifestus in the last 30 years all those races but it's like everything it's very difficult to get enough sponsorship to run all those events would Salt Hill be another venue? Salt Hill the Toastall was revived last year after a lapse of 10 years they had it 10 years ago around the time of the Volvo Ocean Race they had it a couple of years that time and just coming back to Dublin there you were talking about the four corks that you own and the overall responsibility kind of the rule is that you transport them there, you transport them back and you were telling me that it became a bit of an issue because Dave Kelly organised it in Dublin he used to come down and collect two of the corks and then the trailers kind of became for the matter of words battered from wearing's hair and the work needed to be done on them and one of the lads was bringing them up one year and he got penalty points on the motorway and then you have to have insurance for towing a trailer and it has to be on your licence so we got the trailers completely refurbished last year and then it was finding it difficult to get somebody to bring the other two up so it didn't happen this year but hopefully it will come back on track he's a good guy in Dublin doing his best and probably a small committee little help and this is in the heart of Dublin City? on the Liffey like down under O'Connell Bridge? I don't know it would be down that far I was up there the first year maybe more Island Bridge maybe a bit further out maybe further down towards the free arena down that side maybe oh right the other side I just thought that was remarkable in our capital city yeah and in fairness he tried and RT used to be involved giving a bit of coverage on the news and you were talking then about the other counties like Clare have their own corks so just to make listeners aware when racers decide to compete in events in other counties they have to run with their particular style of boat we just have about 5 minutes left it's been highly educational I have to say it is in Clare they have their own racing boats there's a bit of a turn up on the bow of the boat they're different clad, they'll be heavier the lads in Connemara all they want is a row all they want is competition the Arden Islands have their own corks but they'll be much like our own style very much like our own style and then the Neve Ogan carry yeah well it's all Neve Ogan racing they only carry different categories the Connemara people go down there as well they just love it a couple of weeks ago they were down there at the beginning of July so it's essentially you could say a national competition the cork racing encompassing 5 or 6 counties it's there for everybody we spoke about the sailing earlier and the regattas come in a hookery that's all self contained within County Galway and you have your 9 regattas so how many races would there be with the cork racing how many races would there be across the various counties to do the full circuit of races would you be talking 9 or 10 as well in the season I think it's 9 this year but getting back 10, 15 years ago one year there was 18 races wow sometimes we used to have to double up and have them on a Saturday and a Sunday so those races that took place in Roundstone last weekend were part of the national competition the league I was impressed now just giving out the results the geographical distribution of all the competitors they've come from way down in Kerry and from up around Balmoral they've all come to Roundstone I'd say that Harlan had an impact because you'd always get competition players but there wasn't too many you'd have to forgive them on this occasion we used to have a big contingent from Donegal come as well but the distance is a problem it's ok for one or two but when you're coming every Sunday it becomes draining Michael it's been an absolute pleasure having you in and I've learnt so much and I hope the listeners have enjoyed it's such sporting heritage is really at the heart of these interviews that I do and to capture some of the marine heritage in terms of sport for myself it means a lot to me personally and I hope the listeners enjoyed it as well what about the future for Roundstone Regatta just some thoughts to close out on in terms of looking forward we've looked back so much and I hope we've captured the essence first of all we touched on sailing and tragedy and I mentioned two people and I just hope I didn't do anybody did I name wrong or do anybody injustice but I meant good by what I said I hope I didn't offend anybody and the Roundstone Regatta well onwards and upwards just we're in a good place and if we can maintain the standards we have we'll be fine and maybe even like the pole vault increase a little bit but we're in a good place well here's to the future Michael and thanks again for coming in and sharing all your knowledge with us and hopefully I get to go in person next year and actually see it in the flesh as they say thanks Paul and it's a sport that deserves a mention and credit to you for doing this my pleasure my pleasure Michael thanks very much that's it for injury time thanks again to Michael King and looking forward to our next conversation at the end of August this program was kindly sponsored by Kylemore Abbey and Gardens 095 52 001 www.kylemoreabbey.com
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