Eddie to get Sports Star award for lifetime commitment to naomhóg racing

EDDIE Hutchinson whose name is synonymous with naomhóg racing in West Kerry is to be honoured with an Unsung Hero award in recognition of his lifetime contribution to a great traditional sport that most people know nothing about.

The Moorstown man is best known in West Kerry and along Ireland’s Atlantic seaboard for his involvement with naomhóg racing as a champion oarsman, a prolific builder of the traditional craft and a man who has done an enormous amount to bring the sport to a new generation. Further inland people don’t know much about naomhóga but they will be a little better informed when Eddie lifts yet another trophy at the Kerry Sports Star Awards.

Eddie a mentor and trainer of hundreds of oarspeople will be presented with the Unsung hero award at the awards event in the Gleneagle Hotel on February 7 and family, friends and fellow oarspeople will gather to honour his commitment and dedication.

A man who doesn’t know the meaning of ‘idleness’, Eddie used to go out fishing at the crack of dawn before work at his job as a truck driver for Kerry Co-op. In the evenings he was busy too – building naomhóga in the shed beside his house in Moorstown.

Eddie has his own book of designs detailing every measurement and piece of timber needed to make a naomhóg. He has supplied full size and scale models of naomhóga to maritime museums across Europe, including the Polish Maritime Museum and the Vatican Museum. In 1997, he built an oversize 37-foot naomhóg that retraced the journey of Saint Colmcille and 12 of his followers from Derry to Iona in the year 563.

Eddie is gernerous to a fault when it comes to sharing his knowledge and passion for the small fishing craft that were once part of the fabric of life in West Kerry. In 1989 Eddie, along with oarswoman Dee Counihan, set up Cumann Ramhaíóchta an Daingin (Dingle Rowing Club), to share the skills of rowing and to develop the tradition of naomhóg racing into a sport in its own right.

They started out with 15 members and since then hundreds of young and not so young people have learnt and honed the skill of handling a naomhóg in the open sea.

Shortly after the club started Dee Counihan left the area and a young Maunza Heidtke started to work with

Eddie, learning to build naomhóga and developing her own rowing skills as well as training others.

A measure of their success is that over 100 oarspeople now compete in the traditional naomhóg regattas held across West Kerry. “The club wouldn’t be here without him” said club vice chairperson Maunza, “We are all very proud of him.”

Organiser of the Kerry Sports Star awards Ken O’Day said that “Eddie is a deserving recipient of the Unsung Hero award, because of the more than 50 years he has put into developing namohóg rowing in West Kerry”.

“Although he is well known in rowing circles up and down the coast of ireland and has featured in may international magazines, people in the rest of the county do not know the extent of his contribution to sport and the community,” said Ken, adding: “People who contribute to the community should be known by everyone in the county.”

The award presentation will take place at the Kerry Sports Star and Special Awards in the Gleneagle Hotel, Killarney, on Friday, February 7. Tickets for the awards, which include a three course meal and a drinks reception, are €50 for adults and €25 for children. To book tickets phone the INEC/Gleneagle booking office on 0646671555. For further information contact Ken O’Day on 087 2048677.

Eddie Hutch