Other Sports

Tough as Leather - John Lenihan

June 2nd, 2015
by Weeshie Fogarty

 John Lenihan, athlete, one of the greatest Kerry sportsmen we have ever seen. Born in Toureen, Ballymacelligott in October 1960 a beautiful area where if you wanted to get anywhere you either had to go uphill or downhill such is the nature of the terrain and this factor was to have a massive bearing on his later mountain running successes.

I have been a huge admirer of Johns for many years ever since the late Timmy Griffin who wrote so beautifully about athletics in this paper for many years introduced me to him at the foot of Carrantuohill following one of his record breaking wins. One of the bravest and charismatic sportsmen this country has ever seen, he first laced his running shoes in 1977. He is humble, modest, and soft spoken and from my perspective as a sports reporter/presenter he is a dream to interview and always gives of his time freely.

 Now retired from his sport due to injuries sustained during his magnificent career he keeps a dairy farm on the land he grew up on, six miles from Castleisland where milking and farm work keeps him and his wife Mary busy morning, noon and night. One of the most spectacular sights in Irish sport was to see John Lenihan racing at break neck speed down the side of a mountain, as fleeted footed a mountain goat, his trade mark long flowing locks of hair billowing in the wind.

 And now a superb new book packed with amazing photographs, The Story of Sporting Legend John Lenihan, Tough as Leather, has just come to hand. Written by his friend award winning journalist and photographer Con Dennehy it tells in wonderful detail the magnificent life and times of this exemplary athlete. A massive addition to the library of Kerry sport I might be mistaken here but I believe it to be the very first book published on the life of a Kerry athlete. And we have had some great men and women down the years.

It's a wonderful page turner and the beauty of it for me is that it goes behind the man on the mountain and brings the reader on his life journey from 1960 to 2015. A story of great courage, success and failure, inspiration and sadness.  It opens the window to this remarkable mans life and his ability to take on life's challenges despite the marks left by his isolated childhood.  The author was fortunate to have at his disposal Johns extensive collection of diary's which he had meticulously written since the beginning of his career.

This remarkable Kerryman has run more than 140,000 miles in his career the equivalent of running around the world six times. He has run against the best in the world on track, field and mountain and has won the Irish mountain championship run on Carrantuohill on nineteen occasions, a record that will probably stand forever more.  His greatest hour came in 1991 when he won the World Mountain running Championship in Switzerland, the only Irishman to win this highly prestigious event. His memories of this historic day in his life make for captivating reading. Close to five hundreds win in his career is just mind boggling.

The late great Kerry scribe Con Houlihan summed up John Lenihan best of all when he wrote in 1991. "He could walk in to any hotel or pub in Dublin or indeed in many parts of Ireland and it is most likely that anybody would recognize him. And yet he is a world champion in one of the most demanding sports known to man. John Lenihan who of all the unsung heroes is just about the most unsung. He is a star in the same qualities as Ronnie Delaney, Eamon Coughlan, Sean Kelly, and Stephen Roche. And yet he is hardly known outside Kery and not too well within it.

'John Lenihan; his records on the roads and in cross country and on the hills can truly be describes as fabulous. He is a legendary hill runner; long ago he should have ridden in triumph from Dublin airport in an open topped bus. I had seen my neighbor running in Belfield on an evening some years ago; I knew that he had spend the morning working on the hay. Small farmers are like house wives, their work is never done. I was delighted to hear of Johns victory in the World championship and only sorry that I couldn't be there".

Now John Lenihan will never again be referred to as "our unsung hero", Con Dennehy's book has rectified that for ever more. In his own way John has given us together with his sporting achievements an unique insight into the social history of life in rural Ireland, his quest for athletic success and the people who helped and inspired the fascinating fabric of life from very humble beginnings to the summit of the world that never to be forgotten day when he became world champion in Switzerland.

Tough As Leather will be, launched in Gallys Bar /Restaurant Castlemain Road Tralee on Friday June 12th.  International Adventurer Clair o Leary will do the honors. You are invited to come along and say thanks to one of our greatest ever sporting sons. If any deserves our thanks for the memories it is this amazing man.  We will never ever see his likes again.

Fogra: Fifty years ago this year East Kerry won their first Kerry senior football county championship defeating Mid Kerry following a re-play. And now to commemorate this historic victory I will present a special Radio Kerry Terrace Talk program from our Killarney studies on Monday June 22nd.  I will be joined in studio by members of that great side; thirteen of the starting fifteen had worn the Kerry jersey at some grade.  And our special guest on the evening will be the trainor of that team Killarney chemist the exemplary Donie Sheehan. The late Brendan Walsh was board chairman and Denis Fenton who sadly died recently was the outstanding secretary of the board.


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