A Tribute to Joe Doonan,
International Coach of the year 1992
James Joseph Doonan was born
on March 28th 1947, the year of the big snow, at Church Street,
Carrigallen, the
eldest child of Bernard Doonan and Elizabeth Donohoe. Joe, as
he is usually known, has five brothers and four
sisters, all of whom still live in Ireland with five of the ten
settled in Carrigallen. He spent his formative years in the
Mill Lane where his father operated the old corn mill and vividly
remembers the installation of the town sewerage
and the coming of the ESB. He attended Carrigallen National School
where his first teacher was the late Mrs Farrell.
He did quite well at the books but recalls the very effective
ducation available to children of the time long before
audio visual aids were heard of.
Joe says he can still
'smell' the shoemaker's shop, the smell of leather in the saddlers,
burned hooves and cooling
iron in the blacksmiths, oats drying in the kiln, and soda bread
baking on the open fire in his grandmother's house;
and he can hear the sound of the anvil, Billy Cosgrove hammering
segs into a half-sole and the rhythm of milk
flowing into a frothy bucket as his grandfather hand-milked a
cow. He sat the primary cert at eleven and went to the
Latin school, Moyne, on a County Council Scholarship in 1959.
He spent his five years there despite being offered a
scholarship to St Mel's, and made the daily journey by bicycle
with around ten others from Drumeela and
Carrigallen.
It was in Moyne that
he met the man who, after his father, had the most influence on
the formation of his character
and attitudes. This was the late Fr Jimmy Faughnan. He fondly
remembers him as a great mathematician, a
pragmatist, an inspiring philosopher, and most of all a man of
great humility who shunned all publicity and
notoriety. In 1964 Joe entered St Patrick's, Drumcondra, as a
trainee teacher, and graduated in 1966. It was back to
County Leitrim straightaway and he became principal of Jamestown
NS in July 1966. He moved to Rossan NS in
1967 where he was to remain as principal for 17 years. In the
early years he toyed with the idea of a career in the
hotel trade or in music but these fantasies were put to rest in
1971 when he and Sheila McCormack from Keadue,
Co Roscommon were married. They decided to settle in Carrigallen
and this family of seven children, five girls
and two boys, have grown up and gone to school locally.
Joe was a decent footballer,
hurler and handballer and played with the local club. He also
shared the local traditions
of hunting and fishing. He was a tireless community activist serving
as an officer in the GAA Club, Handball Club,
Angling & Tourist Development Association, Youth Club, Gun
Club, and as a member of the Drama Group, the
Variety Group and St Mogue's Ceili Band. A serious footballing
injury in 1973 was to change the direction of his
leisure activities. With his playing career suddenly terminated
he became interested in coaching children in football
and other sports. Very soon he formed the opinion that this was
a task that required some knowledge and expertise,
and he started a quest that has continued ever since. In 1974
he became a member of Ballinamore AC and for 18
years worked with children in the club, coaching and bringing
them to competitions. During this time he coached a
host of provincial and national juvenile champions at a variety
of events. In 1975 he organised community games for
the first time in Aughavas, and for a number of years served in
that organisation locally and at county level.
By the early 80's Joe
had emerged on the national scene having attended numerous courses
on coaching athletics and
having qualified in a number of events. He became BLE Event Coach
for race-walking, then middle distance, and
finally had responsibility for 5000m and 10,000m walks, cross-country
and marathon. This involved coaching
national squads, coach education and conducting training camps
and attending internationals. He helped prepare the
Irish teams for the Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988 Olympics.
Meanwhile he was now coaching a number of senior
athletes and from 1986 to 1992 helped Patricia Griffin of Ballinamore
AC to a number of national titles and
international honours including world CC challenges and world
15k road challenges.
In 1987 he was approached
by Fr Oliver Reilly from Cornafean, a classmate in Moyne, to help
out a girl of 17 who
was interested in running. This of course turned out to be Catherina
McKiernan. Using his by now wide experience
he slowly and carefully charted her development, and by 1989 she
had gained her first international cap. In 1990 she
won her first national senior title and from there steadily but
surely emerged as a respected international runner and
finally as a world-class distance athlete. She has to date competed
in eight consecutive World CC Championships,
two World Trade Challenges, and one European and two Olympic Games.
Catherina is rightly regarded as the greatest female cross-country
runner in Europe, having won the World Grand
Prix series four years in a row and silver medals in the World
Championsips four years in a row. She was European
champion in 1994 and is highly placed on the all-time world lists
for 5,000m, 10,000m and 15,000m. She is the only
athlete ever to achieve such success from home with a home-based
coach and illustrates the expertise and dedication
of the schoolmaster from Carrigallen.
As national coach, Joe was selected for quite a few prestige international
events as team coach and travelled to such
places as Japan, New Zealand, Poland and Iceland. He has been
team coach at four World Championships and two
European challenges. In 1992 he was appointed Irish team coach
for the Barcelona Olympic Games. This is the top
honour that can be given to any coach. He was also voted 'Coach
of the Year' in 1992 by his peers. This remarkable
career in coaching has brought him to every country in Europe
and places as far flung as New Zealand, Tahiti,
Alaska and South Africa. He has sojourned for altitude training
in the Rockies, the Pyrenees and the Alps, and
worked in warm-weather camps in Portugal, France, Italy, Yugoslavia
and Spain. He is on first name-terms with
many of the household names of world athletics and has met and
exchanged views with the world's top coaches.
(Above) Joe Doonan
(extreme rightmiddle row) and the Irish Olympic team,
Barcelona 1992.
Joe often shares with his pupils his first-hand knowledge of places
and peoples about which most of us can only
dream or at best see on video. He will tell with enthusiasm of
some of his more remarkable experiences. He was in
Yugoslavia a short time before the revolution there and at the
first world event held in the new, free South Africa.
He was in Atlanta when the bomb went off and remembers being in
an isolated country hotel in Thessalonika,
Greece, with the Cypriots, Israelis and of course the Irish. The
hotel was guarded by a battalion of the Greek Army
as all were regarded as a security risk.
Finally for the last
two years he has been training the Cavan senior football team
and gets a fair share of the credit
for their remarkable improvement. In fact he has started a quiet
revolution in the training of Gaelic footballers and
is highly regarded country-wide by team managers and coaches.
Though he admits it is very hard work and involves
many sacrifices, by his wife and family in particular, he is extremely
happy with the satisfaction it has brought him
over the years.
This article by Raymond Hackett and Michael Reilly is from "Carrigallen
Parish-A History."
"Carrigallen Parish-A
History."1996, Design inc.
© Ronan Ward Design
2003. All Rights Reserved.