SKELLIG BOATMAN John O’Shea, and his friend, musician Aoife Desmond, have scooped their third Irish wife-carrying title in an ancient sport which has its roots in stealing women as part of a courtship process in Scandinavia and the Baltic states.
The pair took just under one minute and 13 seconds to complete a course which included water obstacles in Sneem, Co Kerry, on Saturday, beating a field of 14 other “couples”. They recently came a respectable sixth in the world championships held each year in Sonkajärvi in Finland.
Sneem Festival spokesman John D O’Sullivan said there was growing interest in the competition which they began hosting three years ago, and is registered with Finnish authorities.
This year the event featured a Japanese celebrity couple and was filmed by a Japanese TV crew.
Mr O’Shea, who ferries tourists to the Skellig Michael Unesco world heritage site 12km (7.5 miles) off the Kerry coast, said the competition was stiff this year and he had “a good few rivals now”.
The sport is popular also in the US and major wife-carrying competitions are held in Wisconsin and Michigan each year.
Wife carrying in Finland goes back to the time of stealing women from neighbouring villages as part of the courtship process.
Types of carry include piggyback, over-the-shoulder and “Estonian” style – in which the woman hangs upside-down with her legs around the husband’s shoulders, holding on to his waist.