In the early days of the Donore Harriers women’s section (formed 1982) a young athlete blazed a trail of glory. However, an injury which led to a more serious health diagnosis cut short her athletics career.
Gwen Stanley claims that she wasn’t a talented athlete, but that she “tried hard”. Her sheer determination won her national cross-country titles at Under 21 and Under 23 grades, as well as a host of other championship medals – including a national road-relay team silver.
In this engaging interview Gwen recalls the women’s “caravan” at Hospital Lane, the craic that was had on the charity relay back from Westport, the positive influence of coach Jim McNamara, and missing out on not getting an Irish vest…
Gwen’s determination and successes made a key impact in the development of the women’s athletics at the club.
STANDARD QUESTIONS
PLACE AND YEAR OF BIRTH? Dublin, Ireland May 1971
WHERE WERE YOU EDUCATED? St Dominic’s College, Cabra West
WHAT HAS BEEN YOU CAREER PATH? I started out as a Receptionist in Edenmore Health Clinic in the Eastern Health Board, which is now the HSE. I moved to London in 1996 having been encouraged by the Nurses I worked with that I would have better job prospects long term. I joined the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in Parliament Square, London as a Junior Admin assistant and worked my way up to PA level. Having spent 6 years there, I joined Railtrack as a PA and I was only there six months and they went into administration. My boss took me with him to Atkins Rail where I worked my way up to EA to the Group MD level within the Rail engineering side of business. After 14 years in engineering, I decided I needed a change, so I moved into Finance. I am currently the PA to General Counsel at the Payment Systems Regulator (The world’s first Payments Regulator).
IN WHAT YEAR DID YOU JOIN DONORE HARRIERS? 1984
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE DONORE HARRIERS? A friend in school asked me to join her one evening in Donore Harriers. She was a famous model Gillian Diffley whom many will remember. She introduced me to Gerry Ronan, the sprints coach, However, sprinting wasn’t my forte, and interest was fading fast. Jim McNamara had moved in next door to us on Carnlough Road and he soon encouraged me to give the club another go. So, we changed direction and Jim introduced me to Eddie Hogan and middle distance running and that was just the beginning.
WERE YOU A MEMBER OF ANY OTHER CLUB BEFORE JOINING DONORE HARRIERS? No
DID YOU PARTICIPATE IN ANY OTHER SPORT? Up until then no.
WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE ATHLETICS EVENT? Cross Country and Road (brutal on track!)
WHO WERE YOUR SPORTING INSPIRATIONS/INFLUENCES? Rosa Mota, Ingrid Kristensen, Liz McColgan and Yvonne Murray
SOCIAL QUESTIONS
WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ? The Dead Sea Scrolls (I don’t do fiction!)
WHAT WAS THE LAST CONCERT YOU ATTENDED? Depeche Mode at the Olympic Stadium, London 2017
WHAT ARE YOUR 3 FAVOURITE FILMS?
1. The Wizard of Oz
2. Jaws
3. Ben Hur
FAVOURITE COUNTRY VISITED? Greece, Greece and more Greece…
WHAT ARE YOUR OTHER INTERESTS AWAY FROM ATHLETICS/SPORT? I enjoy my Neilson holidays twice a year. I play terrible tennis as I talk too much on the court. Of course, I love to sail – albeit very badly! I prefer to be a deck hand than a skipper! I tend to hitch a ride on the Cat with a decent skipper and participate in the Regattas.
IF DISERT ISLAND DISCS ASKED YOU TO PLAY 3 SONGS, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?
1. Nessun Dorma
2. Chariots of Fire
3. Over the Rainbow
ATHLETICS QUESTIONS
WHO WAS/WERE YOUR COACH(ES)? Eddie Hogan and Jim Mac, I also had a lot of guidance from Prof. Brendan O’Shea.
WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE YOUR BEST ATHLETICS ACHIEVEMENT? National Under 18 3,000m Silver in 1990; Under 21 3,000m Silver in 1991; National Schools Silver 3,000m in 1989; National Under 21 and 23 cross-country Gold; multiple Dublin and Leinster medals in cross-country and road. There are many other national medals, but I cannot recall. I’d have to have a look back in my scrap book which is dusting away in my sister’s attic in Dublin. One of our biggest team wins was the National Road Relays in 1990? We won silver beating Finn Valley our biggest rival. Aisling Smith ran fastest 1-mile, Helen Saunders ran the second fastest 1-mile, and I ran the fastest 2-miles leg to secure us the silver. DCH won Gold (very marginally). I held the Raheny annual 5-mile road race record of 28.06 – a junior record for 19 years.
WHAT ARE YOUR BEST TIMES (PBs)? 28.06 for 5-mile road; Jim Mac and I used to do a 15-mile run on a Sunday in approx. 1hr 33 mins. I cannot recall my track times. However, I did a 9.54 for the 3,000m in Oregon in 1989.
WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE COACHED SESSION? Fartlek sessions in the Park with Helen Saunders, Aisling Smith and Catherine O’Conner.
DESCRIBE THE MOST DIFFICULT SESSION THAT YOU HAVE DONE? Every session was difficult! I never liked the Polo Grounds – it was like running a straight line and it was too flat. I always had a preference for the gruelling Magazine Hills and of course the spooky Furry Glen.
WHAT WAS YOUR TYPICAL WEEKLY TRAINING PLAN? Usually 40 – 50 miles mixed between road, track, hills, and mountain running.
DO YOU HAVE A FUNNY STORY RELATED TO ATHLETICS/THE CLUB? Oh Hospital Lane; and Jim Dillon’s pub! A few of us Jim Mac, Willie Smith, Willie Dunne, Helen Saunders and Pat Cassidy and some others whose faces fade me now decided one Thursday after a training session to go in for a pint of Guinness… 8 pints later (which included 8 packets of Tayto each – yes 8 packets each) we emerged from behind the Red Curtain. Those who remember Hospital Lane will remember the famous Red Curtain! Some weren’t concerned the next day with the consumption of all of the black and white stuff. Jim Mac couldn’t get over the fact we had eaten 8 packets of crisps!
WHO ARE YOUR TOP 3 IRISH SPORTSPERSONS OF ALL TIME?
1. Jim Mac, of course
2. Sonia O’Sullivan
3. Catriona McKiernan
SPECIFIC QUESTIONS
YOU WERE A MEMBER OF DONORE HARRIERS WHEN THE CLUB WAS STILL BASED AT ITS HEAD QUARTERS AT HOSPITAL LANE. WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE FACILITIES THERE? AND WHO WERE THE BIG CHARACTERS IN THE CLUB AT THAT TIME? Oh, I was indeed, and conditions were appalling for the Ladies. There was one evening I was heading to the shower in the Ladies changing room – the damp and dreary “caravan”. Helen Saunders was already showering – and I can still hear the trickling of the water coming from that shower. A man entered the Caravan; I screamed and ran out straight into the main club house. Yer man was gone by the time the lads came running out; must have been my screams that set him off running.
Big characters! There was Eddie Hogan, our most formidable coach and of course the one and only Pat Mullaly. He famously disliked women in the club, and you had to do something extraordinary to win him over. I wasn’t too long at the Club and I started to win titles. Thus, he emerged one evening out the club door and headed down the lane to congratulate me on my Dublin cross-country title. I recall feeling so chuffed that I had been finally accepted as an equal at the club. It was never going to be the case at Jim Dillon’s pub – that curtain we reckon still hangs “somewhere out there”! Of course, we had some wonderful characters: – all of the Dunnes, the Iremonger family, the Redicans, the Lynch brothers, Prof Brendan O’Shea, Tony Murphy; Tommy and Eric Hayward, Matt Rudden, Sean Callan, Harry Gorman, Maurice Ahearn, Willie Smith and family, Pat Cassidy, Herbie McClelland but to name a few.
YOU WON THE NATIONAL UNDER 23 CROSS-COUNTRY TITLE IN CIRCA 1992. WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THAT DAY? I remember it was a bitter cold day and when I saw that hill to climb, I got a lump in my throat! However, it didn’t deter my determination that I was going to get up that hill no matter what the weather and conditions. Donore Harriers had great success that day! I won the Under 23 title, Aisling Smith won the Junior Ladies and Donal O’Sullivan may have won the Junior boys or was placed? The Men’s team did particularly well also.
YOU WERE OBVIOUSLY A VERY TALENTED ATHLETE, BUT YOUR RUNNING CAREER WAS CUT SHORT BY INJURY. CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE INJURY AND ITS IMPACT ON YOUR LIFE GENERALLY? I was lining up for an International XC race in Naas; the race was on Naas Horse Racing grounds. It had been really frosty, and the ground was rock hard. I was warming up and heard my name over the tannoy. They were expecting big things from me that day. All of a sudden, I went down a pothole (or rather a deep indent of horse’s hooves), twisted my hip and that was the end of the road for me. I lost my sponsorship with Asics and felt at a loss as to what to do for a couple of years. I thought about taking up coaching, but my heart was broken. It took 3 years of treatment to get my hip and back sorted out. What was finally discovered during the course of scans and treatment I was born with a bit of Spina Bifida. Therefore, I had a weakness which was always going to shorten my career. So, I took up another form of “Clubbing” instead!
HOW MANY TIMES DID YOU GET TO REPRESENT IRELAND? I finished second in National 3,000m Under 18s and 21s and got done out of a vest twice because they only sent one athlete to the International race each time. Belinda McArdle (Finn Valley AC) and Sinead Delahunty (Kilkenny) who were amazing athletes. I got picked for Mallusk International CC January 1991 a bitter cold but bright day. The BLE Organisers ran out of Irish kit on the day, so sadly nothing in the bag for me. Jim Mac was fuming! He encouraged me to get out there and beat those with Irish vests on. I ended up running in my Donore Harriers vest. I ran a blinder that day, finishing around 30th and ahead of most of the Irish team and not far behind Valerie McGovern time wise. I went with the Irish Vets in 1989 to Oregon for a month for the World Veteran Championships. The Oregon Track and Field organised a Junior international 3,000m race, and I finished 3rd.
DO YOU STILL FOLLOW DONORE HARRIERS AND ATHLETICS IN GENERAL? Any televised athletic series and events and I am glued to the set – Olympics, European’s, World, London Marathon, etc. For many years I’ve gone to the Waterhouse-B-B Shield race to catch up with folk and reminisce on the good times. Sadly, with Jim Mac gone it’s not the same anymore. And of course, with Covid-19 this year I never made that boat thanks to the 8 hours’ notice we got for the lockdown that currently prevails. I shall be looking forward to Tokyo if it goes ahead this year.
DO YOU HAVE ANY CONNECTIONS WITH THE ATHLETICS SCENE IN LONDON? Helen Saunders joined London Irish just to train with as she no longer competed. And as I was no longer able to run the very famous PJ Fagan and I would walk around Richmond park whilst everyone else took off on a Sunday morning Run. We used to head to the worst “Café’s” in Ealing afterwards for a cuppa. Neither Helen nor I would have a cuppa as we simply didn’t like “Greasy Spoons”. It’s a put us off for life!
YOU WERE PART OF THE DONORE HARRIERS CHARITY RELAY FROM WESTPORT. WHAT ARE YOUR MEMORIES OF THAT EVENT? That was so much fun running from Mayo back to our Club House raising money for Charity. We ran between 6 miles and 10 miles in intervals – over 150 miles to cover so we managed to cover a lot of ground. The crack was mighty! Having left Helen (Saunders) in the local town in Longford shaking her charity bucket vigorously, we left her to it, and then realised half-way up the road she was missing. David Lynch and I turned back in his little rusty Fiesta car, only to see Helen by-pass us on a milk truck. She gave us the royal wave! Those who know Helen will of course understand standards haven’t slipped much! We stopped off at a boarding school overnight in Mullingar. Willie Smith had entrusted Aisling (Smith) to hold onto the prized bottle of whiskey for the Father (local priest) as a thank you for putting us up. Or should I say for putting up with us! Some of the crew fancied a drop of the auld bottle – and before we all knew it the litre was gone! For the records, I didn’t part-take on that occasion. However, I think Aisling did? Willie gave them all a dressing down the next day and of course it fell on deaf ears. We were having too much fun to take any notice.
YOU WERE WITH DONORE HARRIERS IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE WOMEN’S SECTION. HOW WAS THE GROUP PROMOTED AND ENCOURAGED DURING THAT FOUNDATION PERIOD? The more medals we were winning the more encouragement we were getting, not only from our fellow athletes in the club but a wider encouragement from Dublin City Harriers, Liffey Valley and Civil Service. Lindie Naughton was a serious fan writing about every achievement in her weekly column. Over time her column widened, and much recognition was given on the back of some great coaching from Jim Mac, Noel Redican and Willie Smith.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO ASPIRING YOUNG ATHLETES? As Jim Mac would say pain is temporary and victory is forever! There are two types of talent – natural and raw. Natural of course having the slight advantage over raw. However, if you nurture raw talent in the right way you can be just as successful as the naturally gifted athlete. To achieve that, a much greater effort and focus is required to gain the awards. It’s all about PMA ‘Positive Mental Attitude’ – and of course sheer determination and hard graft.