As dawn rose on Thursday, Noel Casey was out on the water to coach a promising young crew that could represent Ireland this season. He says coaching helps keep him young. Thursday was his birthday. He turned 86.
Casey is a direct link to the Caseys of Sneem, the rowers and wrestlers who were so successful that all seven brothers were inducted into the Irish Sports Hall of Fame. Noel Casey’s father was Jack Casey and Noel was brought up in their home place in Ballaugh, as his mother died when he was a baby and his father returned with the baby.
Ballaugh is on a peninsula and the only practical way to get in and out was to row. His grandmother, Bridget, rowed with him to church and to shop.
“I learned rowing technique at about four,” Casey told the Irish Times this week.
The knowledge served him well. As a teenager he moved to London to work and rowed and mentored there for over half a century; he coached the British women’s eight at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. Two daughters, Caroline and Bernie, were winning rowers with Thames, while his granddaughter Victoria Carroll will row the Atlantic in 2020.
Noel Casey returned to Sneem when his wife, Rose, died at the turn of the century. He coached with Muckross and, in recent years, with Kenmare.
Tom Kelly, one of the top Ireland internationals at junior level, has emerged from Casey’s programme, as has Georgia O’Brien, who has teamed up with Clara O’Brien of University of Limerick to form the crew which Noel is coaching this week.
The two O’Briens row in an under-23 pair set to contest the Ireland trials.
Noel Casey is extraordinarily sharp mentally, though he says he has no idea why he has had such a good run. He ventures that the contact with young people may be a reason. They keep you sharp, he says.
Ireland could have representatives on both women’s and men’s crews at the 2020 Boat Races.
The Cambridge trials this week saw Caoimhe Dempsey stroke the crew which won their race, while Andrew Goff was the seven man in the crew that was beaten in a good contest. Both were good university rowers, with Trinity and UCD respectively, and both represented Ireland. Goff twice took medals at the World Under-23 Championships, while Dempsey won gold at the Home International in 2018.
In 2017, Claire Lambe rowed with the victorious Cambridge crew. Lambe had been an Ireland Olympian in 2016.
The Home Internationals are set for a revamp, with sprint events brought in and lightweight numbers cut. Irish umpires Lisa O’Callaghan and Kieran Kerr will officiate at international events this season.
Happy Christmas to all.
