In the Name of The Father
Paul Kimmage recalls the childhood inspiration that led to his great love affair with the greatest sport in the world
Paul Kimmage reveals how he fell in love with the greatest sport in the world
“Kimmage!” “Yes sir.” “Where’s your gear? Why aren’t you playing football?” “I’ve a race this weekend, sir.” “A race? What sort of race?” “A bike race. I’m a cyclist, sir.” “A cyclist!” St David’s CBS, Artane, Dublin, circa 1974
THERE was a time, not so long ago, when there were as many cloudless days as cyclists in Ireland. We would take our bikes out on Sunday mornings — south to Bray or Blessington, west to Clane or Maynooth, north to Slane or Drogheda — and every rider we’d meet was one we knew or could name.
Peter Morton and Liam Horner and Noel O’Neill and Steve Flynn and Fran Riordan and John Short and Noel Hammond and Denis Devin. Seamus Shorthall and the Dublin Wheelers: “We’re only touring!” Shay O’Hanlon and the Clann Brugha: “There y’ar.” The Bray Wheelers: “Hop!” The Orwell Wheelers: “Hop!” The Irish Road Club: “Hop!” The Navan Road Club: “Hop!” The Les Jeunes: “Hop!” The Drogheda Wheelers: “Hop!”
And the brothers, so many brothers: the McQuaids and the Lallys and the McCormacks and the Nultys and the Powers and the Nolans and the Cassidys and the McKennas and the Earleys and the Flanagans and the Gillerans and the Kellys and the Costelloes. We were taught by their fathers and fed by their mothers and dated their sisters, and though we didn’t always get along, we all shared a wonderful secret: This is the greatest sport in the world. Consider my father, Christy, the youngest of seven children born to his parents, James and Mary. His first home — a small tenement house in Eccles Place, Dublin — is one shared with another family; his father — a stoker on the railway — is often out of work, and his childhood is scarred by days when the only food on the table is stale bread his brothers have gathered from the Mater Hospital. He’s still a boy when they move to Cabra. He learns to swim in the Royal Canal and to roller-skate with his pals and leaves school at 14 to take a job with a gents’ outfitters — Kellys — in North Earl Street. Then his brothers start cycling and loan him a bike and he’s riding through the Phoenix Park one afternoon when he happens upon a moment that changes his life. A bike race. Consider him now, two years later on this sunny afternoon in Roundwood, as he stands on the starting line for the Tour of Wicklow; consider the bell and bottle on his handlebars; the tyre wrapped around his shoulders; the goggles, the leather mittens, the dandy neckerchief, the cheeky grin. If you didn’t know better, you might mistake him for a Spitfire pilot, but it’s the smile, the secret, that betrays him:
This is the greatest sport in the world.
Cycling was a magic carpet that brought him to places he had never dreamed of — London, Paris, a World Championships in Rheims, a chartered plane ride with ‘Il Campionissimo’ Fausto Coppi — and immeasurable joy and esteem. It was also how he met his one true love, Angela Davis, on a warm September’s evening at Butler’s tearooms — a favourite roadstop — at The Scalp in County Wicklow.
Where my father raced, my mother followed, and my earliest memories were watching him from the side of the road. Sometimes, after a finish, he’d pick me up and put me on the crossbar and I’d feel like a king as he pedalled back to the car. But the best days were always when he won.
There’s a photo at home of my six-year-old brother, Raphael, and I standing with our arms raised as he sprints clear of a pack in Ballyboughal, and the joy on his face is surpassed only by our own. My father was God to me. I could not wait to follow in his footsteps. I could not wait to make him proud.
One night, a couple of months after he announced his retirement after winning his final race — the Skerries Grand Prix in 1972 — I noticed him tinkering with an old frame. He was fitting it with some new components and tweaking it for size. My size. “Put your feet, here.” (He lowered the saddle.) “Put your arms here.” (He shortened the reach.) “Put your hands on the bars.” (He adjusted my thumbs.) “Yeah, not bad.” (I almost fainted.) “Do you want to go for a ride?” Consider the smile on the kid’s face as he follows his father down the road. Consider the magic carpet and where it takes him. Consider the woman he meets — the sister of a racer — and the friendships he makes, and the memories that sustain him. Consider that he’s just bought a tandem to share with his wife and is still riding his bike 40 years later. Consider the wonder he feels that so many people have discovered the secret:
This is the greatest sport in the world.
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