‘Enjoying it and looking forward to competing’
friends were thinking about joining the swimming club and Patrick was part of the group, he was always in the middle of everything.
“His friends were wonderful and while they never had a wheelchair user involved in the club until Patrick joined, they were glad to have him there, his physical disability didn’t ever matter to his friends or indeed to the swimming club.”
Among those friends is Darragh Greene, who swam an Irish record in the heats of the 100m breaststroke in South Korea to secure qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Another close friend, Gerry Quinn, was desperately unlucky not to make Tokyo. Keeping that sort of company was never going to do Patrick any harm when he realised he was much more than someone swimming for leisure and fitness.
He was good in the water, strong, he seemed to relish his unrestricted mobility in the pool and had no difficulty meeting everything that was asked of him in terms of training. He explained it best himself: “It was one of those things, it was something I really enjoyed when I was 10, 11, 12 and you kind of have that natural progression when you start to realise ‘ok I like this, I’m pretty good at this’.
“I got the chance to go away with a Junior Irish team at the age of like 15 and I got to go over to a British Junior Championships and that was the first time I got to race a proper para competition against other people with disabilities and that was probably the moment I realised ‘OK, this is something I really want to do and pursue a little bit’.
“When I realised this was something that was going to become my life, it might have been another year
or two when I had to make a decision around college. “When I realised that swimming was something that was going to affect that decision and something that I was going to take into account, that was nearly the moment I realised that this was more than a pastime, it’s part of who I am now.”
He was never afraid to speak his mind and ask the value of everything he was being advised to do in the pool. “He has never been afraid to ask the hard question and to understand why certain routines or training schedules were being put in place for him,” Siobhán said.
He will compete in the 400m freestyle where he is expected to put in a strong performance, he’s less likely
to feature prominently in his second event, the 100m backstroke.
His build up to Tokyo has been promising, he represented Ireland at the 2018 Para Swimming European Championships held in Dublin, he missed out on a podium finish by less than two 10ths of a second in the S6 freestyle 400m. The following year he went on to represent his country at the 2019 Para Swimming World Championships in London.
In 2021 Patrick showed some very encouraging form at the World Para Swimming European Championships. The Paralympics start on August 24 and will continue until Sunday September 5. Patrick admits that watching Irish athletes perform so well on the track or in the pool and so eloquently off it, his appetite has been whetted for the games. Frankly, he can’t wait.
Last Saturday he left for Japan, his trip laced with excitement and an
annoying issue en route which saw his specially designed wheelchair badly damaged in transit.
On Twitter, Patrick cut to the chase very quickly and made his point well. Within hours the problem was being resolved, a second wheelchair was secured and transported in the company of a Team Ireland official to London where Patrick was glad to take charge of it before flying on to Japan with the team.
His mum agreed that it was most unfortunate that the chair was damaged, but feels Patrick made his point well. “It’s sorted now, but there is the principle too in terms of items of value being looked after in the right way. He made his point well,” she said. Since his arrival in Tokyo he has been settling in well, the games are close now, he can almost taste them. He surprised his mum on Tuesday with a phone call. Normally, Siobhán told the Sligo Weekender, it tends to be texts mainly, so the unexpected chat with her son just before she spoke to this newspaper was very welcome.
“It was great to hear from him. He’s in good form, enjoying the moment too, but looking forward to competing,” she said when asked how he was doing.
For his mum and dad Siobhán and Kevin and all the family, it is the best of times. For Patrick, the dream of making Tokyo, which he worked incredibly hard to turn into reality, has come true.