A latecomer to sport, Kieran Mac Mahon was part of a golden group in Limerick who would etch their names into the folklore of Irish cycling. Seen here representing Ireland at the Giro del Capo race in South Africa in March 2004 on his 30th birthday.
A decade after Limerick international rider Kieran Mac Mahon’s life was claimed in a traffic accident, his family is holding a race in his honour. To mark the occasion, Kieran’s friend and sometime rival, Tim Barry remembers one of the good guys who made his mark in competition and on those around him.
It was mid morning on Monday June 21st, 2004. I sat at my desk feeling a little tired after a weekend spent racing on the roads of Munster.
A colleague who’d just left the office to drive towards Limerick unexpectedly walked back in the door. She’d just witnessed an accident on the road and after helping the injured before the ambulances arrived she’d returned, visibly distressed.
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I didn’t give the crash much thought; maybe immune to hearing about accidents because there are so many of them. My immediate thought was my colleague’s mental state.
But that would change.
The phone rang later that day. It was Martin O’Loughlin, the manager of the national team at the time.
He broke the news that floored me. My fellow racer and good friend Kieran Mac Mahon had died in an accident outside Cork that morning; the same crash my colleague had witnessed. He was aged just 30 years.
It was unbelievable to think that Kieran had died just a few miles away from where I sat that Monday morning, especially as just the previous day in the John Drumm Cup in Currow we had chased each other in the road over the last few miles with Kieran proving the strongest finishing 5th with me behind.
We laughed about how hard those last miles had been at the presentation before heading home.
His death was a bolt from the blue, both shattering and final.
This was a rider I first saw as a rival, then a teammate on various Munster and Irish teams. But most importantly we had become good friends.
Ten years ago it seemed so surreal. It still does. Good guys like him are not meant to die so young.
So for those of you not blessed with having know Kieran, who was he?
He was a gentleman, but at the same time, a talented and tough rider.
Kieran was born in Limerick but as a youngster moved to Clonlara a few short miles across the border in Clare.
He was a latecomer to sport as he suffered with ill health as a child, compounded by chronic asthma.
Always a great competitor, Kieran was part of a talented group of riders to come out of Limerick at the time, with Davy Hourigan and Brian Quinn among them.
Like many cyclists of his age, he fell in love with the bike game watching Kelly and Roche. He gave up football to take his first steps into racing.
He joined Limerick Cycling Club in 1992 and took his first win at the Caherconlish GP soon after.
It was a golden period for cycling in Limerick; with the likes of Davy Hourigan, Brian Quinn and Bob Murray all representing Ireland and living and training in the area.
Kieran’s first Rás was in ’95. He rode on the Limerick team and the following year he won the category 2 competition; not bad for a rider in just his second outing in the big one and not long off stabilisers.
As Kieran progressed from a novice to a cat 1 rider in just a few short years, some of those in his Limerick training group who were perhaps less committed to chasing wins and top physical condition remember a man who remained unchanged by his elevation up the pecking order.
He was always there with a push over the top of a hill if one of the lads was getting dropped. Success and high standing in the sport didn’t change him.
Those of us lucky enough to have raced against him will remember those scary looking pro legs with muscle definition we’re used to seeing only on Eurosport.
His legs were the product of gruelling gym work throughout the long winter months. He was way ahead of his peers in this area and thankfully as we became friends he shared that knowledge with me.
It was those sculptured legs that gave Kieran his devastating turn of speed and finishing sprint. Most people think sprinters are born with their kick, but Kieran didn’t agree.
He carved out his strength during tortuous speed sessions behind his dad Brian’s Honda on the Ennis road. At the end of every session coming in by Bunratty, Brian would have the throttle fully open and Kieran would somehow manage to sprint by.
If he couldn’t meet his dad for a speed session he would use trucks and vans instead. This made him a little unpopular with local drivers who couldn’t drop him.
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Those rides to get into top shape were done while cycling home from work. The path of the full timer was not for Kieran.
When he wasn’t chasing traffic, his club mates often found training with him a little risky. He was very softly spoken so you had to look at him when he was speaking, with many a rider experiencing a close shave or two as a result of taking their eyes off the road.
His dedication, hard work and attention to detail are really what got him to the top of the national cycling scene, winning races all over the country.
He represented his country and province on numerous occasions in some exotic places, some less so, including the UK, South Africa, Greece and Slovakia.
Third from left with the Kerry team appreciating the applause from the crowd after they won the team prize in 2004.
The level of his dedication was captured perfectly coming up to Christmas 2003. The company he worked for booked all their staff into a nice hotel in Cork for a Saturday night party with a free bar.
Kieran called me the day before and his only concern was whether there would be a group going out the following morning because he wanted to do five hours and would be foregoing the free pints.
It was that dedication that saw him net 6TH and 5th on stages of the Rás in 2001 and 2002.
Fittingly, since 2005 the winner of the green jersey in the Rás is awarded the Kieran Mac Mahon Memorial Trophy; great sprinters such as Malcolm Elliot and John Degenkolb being the most notable winners to date.
The 2001 season saw him win the final stage of the Tour of Ulster in a scintillating sprint.
Sadly two riders who finished just behind him in the break that day, Paul Healion and Brian Lennon are both no longer with us; also having left us before their time.
The passing of three lads, in their prime and living such full lives, is a reminder how lucky we all are to be able to get out and throw a leg over a bike.
Of Kieran’s results, the one win that stands out for me looking back, perhaps for no other reason other than the location in Cong, Co Mayo, was a stage in the now defunct Rás Connachta.
Cong is famous as the setting of the movie “The Quiet Man“ starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.
Kieran really was the quiet man of Irish cycling; a guy who did his talking with his legs.
His soft demeanour and quiet voice was in contrast to his nerves of steel and aggression at the sharp end of a day’s racing.
Kieran in Dublin's Phoenix Park after finishing the eight-day FBD Rás in 2003; he would ride the big one just one more time.
In his last Rás Mumhan in 2004, coming into the final corner with the smell of whitewash in the air Kieran and the English sprinter Dean Downing both wanted to be in the same place at the same time.
As they dived into the corner, neither backed down and both hit the deck. Tempers flared and as they got up off the ground, Kieran didn’t blink. He stood his ground and eventually calm was restored.
He suffered a dislocated shoulder that would hamper his preparations for the Rás just a few weeks away. He still rode; his 10thride in the national tour.
He competed on a very strong Kerry team alongside friends Paul Griffin, Vinnie Gleeson, Sean Lacey, Richard Cahill and Cian Lynch, who managed them that week and is now master of ceremonies on the race.
The boys won the team prize that year. It would be Kieran’s last win, though nobody knew that when he stood on the podium on the final day alongside such good friends.
He has been missed by the Irish cycling family for the last 10 years but especially by his own family; his parents Brian and Margaret, sisters Deirdre and Claire, brother Brían and son James.
They supported him throughout his life both on and off the bike.
This coming weekend they’ll celebrate that life with a new race named after him. The inaugural Kieran Mac Mahon Memorial is down for decision in Clonlara this Sunday, June 22nd.
We’ll remember a great friend, a great man, a family man, a quiet man.
You left, I died
I went and you cried
You came, I think
But I never really know
I served my time
I watched you climb
The wrong incline
But what do I know
(Bellx1 June 2004)
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