Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
LONELINESS OF THE DIRECT PROVISION RUNNER
Ethiopian Yared Derese has found salvation in Carrickmacross and taken Irish athletics by storm after overcoming the odds
YARED DERESE takes out a small blue card from his wallet.
The residency permit is no bigger than a bank card, but it holds the key to a whole new life for the Ethiopian athlete.
The card signifies his full refugee status after spending two years in Direct Provision and just before Christmas he got the green light to be reunited with his wife Mitsilal and sevenyear-old daughter Selina.
He hasn’t seen them for over three years.
“When I got the family approval, it was big,” he says, smiling.
It’s been a long road to this point.
One that involves a system barely fitfor purpose, lonely days and nights in cramped conditions and long periods of no contact with a family caught up in a bloody conflict.
It’s the story of an international class athlete working 12-hour night shifts packing mushrooms in the middle of County Monaghan and cycling 16km to train on his day off.
Light
The story of an asylum seeker who started winning races all over Ireland, while living in temporary accommodation.
Most of all, it’s the story of friendship and how a small athletics club in Carrickmacross provided some light at the end of a very long tunnel.
“I love Carrick and Carrick Aces,” he says. “Hopefully my daughter will join the club too when she comes.”
Derese comes from the Amhara region in Ethiopia, a country that is currently fraying at the edges.
GIFTED:
Yared Derese winning the
2019 Rock ’n’ Roll Half- Marathon
His wife Mitsilal is from Tigray, a neighbouring region where armed rebels are seeking independence.
In recent months a bloody conflict has engulfed the country.
“It’s almost civil war. A lot of people killed,” Derese says, shaking his head.
Such is the chaos, two-time Olympic gold medallist Haile Gebrselassie recently announced he was enlisting in the army to fight the Tigray rebels.
Ethiopia has been grappling with political and sectarian tensions for several years and in 2018 Derese’s house in Addis Ababa was attacked after he took part in a peaceful protest in the capital city.
Mitsilal and Selina went to stay at his brother’s home and when Derese took up an invitation for the Dublin marathon, they felt it wasn’t safe for him to come back.
He applied for asylum in Ireland after the race and so began his Direct Provision experience.
The system was designed as a short-term fix at the turn of the century to accommodate asylum seekers in Ireland.
Twenty-two years later it’s still in place with around 7,000 people currently in the system — many in temporary accommodation with designated centres full to capacity.
Derese spent a week in
Dublin before being moved to temporary accommodation at Treacy’s Hotel in Carrickmacross.
He had little or no English, no friends and no real idea where he was.
“In Treacy’s, it was just eat, sleep and pray — no training,” he says. “It was hard.”
Delays
Over the last two decades Direct Provision has been heavily criticised for the lengthy delays in the applications process.
This has in turn led to concerns over the mental and physical health of asylum seekers.
One particular incident hit the headlines during Derese’s time at Treacy’s when asylum seekers were forced to pack up and make way for a wedding party that had been booked at the hotel.
“We got a bus. New hotel, new room, different person,” says Derese.
“Then Sunday afternoon, bus and then return to Treacy’s.”
It was at Treacy’s that Derese met Patrick Cassidy, a local volunteer with Fáilte Isteach, an English language conversation group for immigrants.
Cassidy was also involved in the Carrick Aces athletics club.
“I remember he showed me his times, 63 minutes for the half-marathon and I couldn’t believe it,” says Cassidy.
Derese was invited to the club to run with the locals. It proved a game-changer.
“Immediately you could see the difference it made in him,” says Cassidy.
“Yared brought a massive feelgood factor to the club. He started coaching the kids one night a week and they loved it.
“He brought a professional touch too. Most of us never really stretched properly. Yared transformed the whole club.
“We’d be running at our optimum, it’s only a slow jog for him, but he drops back and keeps everyone going.
“It was amazing having a world-class athlete spurring you on.”
Running in Carrickmacross was a bit of a change for Derese.
He was used to training camps with fellow professionals at altitude, often 2,500 metres above sea level.
Highest
Now he was running around a cinder track with club runners and kids in a county where the highest peak is 373 metres, but he loved every minute of it.
In early 2019 he returned to racing and finished third behind Mick Clohisey in the Raheny 5 Mile race, while only half-fit. It was a sign of things to come.
Over the next few months he won a series of races around the country, including a national title in the Rock ‘n’ Roll half-marathon in Dublin — all while living in temporary accommodation.
The work of the club was recognised when Carrick Aces won ‘Development Club of the Year’ at the 2019 Athletics Ireland awards and then out of the blue Derese was notified he would be relocated to a DP Centre in Moate, County Westmeath.
“It was unbelievable,” says Cassidy. “He’d worked so hard to make friends in Carrickmacross, he was doing so much in the community and now he was being moved on again.”
Club members and friends appealed on his behalf and eventually he was allowed to stay within the county — but relocated to St Patrick’s DP Centre on the outskirts of Monaghan town.
Problem
He was now in a small room with a fellow asylum seeker from Malawi at a centre that later had a serious cockroach problem, but he was grateful to be still within the county. Then Covid hit.
“That was when he was close to cracking up,” says Cassidy. “Every meal he was taking into his room because of Covid and he was 40 km away from his friends and the club.”
Derese is philosophical about the experience.
“Our neighbours had a room with five people sharing. So, it was not too bad. I was lucky,” he says.
His application for full refugee status was in limbo and his wife and daughter had moved to Tigray to be close to Mitsilal’s parents.
Then in November 2020, war broke out in the region.
“It was a big worry,” says Derese. “(They had) no internet. No contact. For one month I don’t know what’s happening.
That was the worst time for me.”
Thankfully they made it back to
Addis Ababa to stay with his brother and made contact.
Around the same time
Derese was finally given a work permit and got a job at a mushroom farm in Monaghan.
Shifts
It was five days a week, 12hour night shifts, but it was a relief to be working and out of his room.
“That was a good help for the stress,” says Derese.
“I was doing that job, mushrooms. It’s better for my head. Before I started that job, I was not sleeping.
“Now it was better. I was working. All day sleep, all night working.”
When the lockdown restrictions allowed, Derese would sometimes cycle a 16km round-trip to Scotstown to train there.
Cassidy was in constant contact and kept him involved in Carrick Aces and with the help of solicitor Rob Alexander, his case progressed until he was finally given full refugee status.
Finally some daylight. It meant he could leave St Pat’s and move back to Carrickmacross and back closer to Carrick Aces.
He got a job in a food factory in the town and a new place to stay and said goodbye to Direct Provision.
The next step was to apply for
reunification with his wife and daughter and last month he got the good news after some help from local Peace Commissioner Rory McEvoy.
“She’s okay, she’s not political, she’s an athlete like me, but it’s been difficult,” he says.
Enrolled
Derese is hopeful they will be in Carrickmacross within the next few weeks and has enrolled Selina in Bun Scoil Louis Naofa.
“I have the uniform and everything is ready,” he says, smiling.
Covid and injuries have curtailed his athletics career over the last two years, but he’s hoping to make up for lost time.
Derese is good friends with fellow Ethiopian Hiko Tonosa, who also came through Direct Provision and represented Ireland at the European CrossCountry Championships in December.
The pair trained together recently, running around the golf course at the Nuremore Hotel in Carrickmacross before the first golfers were out.
At 37, Derese still has ambitions for his athletics career and would love to represent his adopted country one day, but for now he has a bigger prize in sight — seeing his wife and daughter again.
Friends
And introducing them to the friends he’s made in Carrickmacross. Friends like Sinéad Rooney, Martin McCahey, Niamh Clarke, Imelda Hughes, Raymond and Erin Smith and of course, Patrick Cassidy.
And he’s looking forward to introducing them to some of the wonders that Cassidy has brought to his attention too.
“Paddy’s music from the 80s and 90s,” says Derese, laughing.
“From the beginning Paddy has been a great help for me. A lot of friends around me, I’m very lucky to get these people.
“Without these people, I can’t do anything.
“Carrick is a great place for family. And Carrick Aces is a great club. I think they will love it.”
He’s come a long way since first arriving in Carrickmacross back in 2018.
At last, the home stretch is now in sight.
And the last mile is never crowded.
‘No internet. No contact. For one month I don’t know what’s happening. That was the worst time...’ ‘Yared has brought a massive feelgood factor to the club’