Today we re post Peter McDermott’s Legends of Clonliffe, Maurice Ahern. Unfortunately when the club web site migrated to a new host in recent times the original was lost. We are delighted to re post now:
Only one person in Clonliffe has been a member of the Club for longer than Maurice Ahern * but
few , if any, has served it with greater distinction and loyalty. For almost seventy years Maurice has
devoted himself to this great athletic club, which he joined when he was not much more than a boy .
He has served in just about every capacity : as athlete , coach , Captain , Secretary, Trustee and
President . He has been deeply involved in every positive development in the Club and it is no
exaggeration to say that, without Maurice’s massive contribution , Clonliffe would not be in the very
strong and healthy position that it now enjoys.
It was an auspicious day for “ The Harriers” ( as they were known locally ) when , in 1962, a very
young Maurice left his home in Church Avenue , Drumcondra and cycled up to this predominantly
cross country running club which had recently take up residence in Santry ( “ Out in the bleedin’
sticks “ according to some ) . Maurice had taken part in the Dublin Primary Schools’ Sports in 1950
which had lit the spark of running in his being . With so many sports grounds, including Croke Park
and Tolka Park, within a stone’s throw of his home, and the wide open expanses of Clonliffe College,
where his father was the caretaker and manager of the College farm, on his doorstep, it was little
wonder that he became fascinated by many sports . What were his thoughts as he approached the
old rusting Nissen hut which passed for a dressing room ? Like most young boys and girls he
probably dreamed one day of Olympic glory , that one day he would emulate Ronnie Delaney who
was the hero of the age and of the Nation , having won 1500m. Gold in Melbourne in 1956 . But it
was the Olympics in Rome, four years later, that spurred the young Maurice to join an athletics club.
He was brought down to earth after a few weeks of training with the Club members when he
overheard Club Captain , Harry Cooney , say “ That young Ahern lad could be useful. He might make
sixth man on our Novice team”. And indeed , Maurice did more than that , finishing 4 th . scorer on the
team that won the Dublin Novice . He was also kept grounded by having to do his share of fund
raising for a club which , at that time , was in a precarious financial position . Clonliffe might have
had a brand new, state of the art cinder track but it still had to be paid for and maintained . And so,
Maurice found himself in the company of Johnny O’Leary*, and others , out in all weathers trying to
collect money from a none too well disposed public on the streets of Dublin . He recalls shaking tin
cans under people’s noses on a freezing O’Connell Street and getting verbally abused by customers
in Drumcondra pubs while attempting to collect a few pounds to keep Clonliffe afloat. He was also
one of a group of young members who sold oranges and bars of Club Milk to the Senior runners
after training in another effort to raise funds for the stadium. ( Fruit and chocolate after training :
nice way to replenish the glycogen !) This, we must remember, was Nineteen Fifties or early Sixties
Ireland, possibly among the most impoverished times in the history of the young state, when money
was indeed scarce and every penny was precious .
Maurice’s dream of making the Irish team in the marathon for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico came
undone in the Irish Trial earlier that year . Going fine until the 20 mile mark ,while lying in 9 th . place ,
Maurice then discovered what many an athlete has discovered before and since : the marathon only
starts at 20 miles .He could not cope with the pace of the winner Mick Molloy and came home in
2:45:50. Still, a respectable time- and a respectable time still. As he so succinctly put it himself : “ I
was good enough to dream , but not good enough to make the team”.
But he did have the consolation of being a member of the winning Clonliffe team , picking up his first
National Senior team Gold. Shortly after this ,despite having respectable PBs in every event from
the 440 to the Mile**, ( 55.2, 1:59.3, 4:29 respectively ) , Maurice decided to direct his expertise
towards coaching . One of his first protégés was the remarkably gifted Tom Gregan . Under
Maurice’s tutelage , Gregan started producing world class performances at a tender age . He ran a
4:06 mile at the age of 16 , surpassed globally only by the remarkable Jim Ryun of the U.S.A. He won
the 800m., the 1500m. and the 5000m. at the National Junior Championships on the same day in
the late 60s. . Tom got an athletics scholarship to the famous Villanova, the nursery of great milers,
but , sadly , despite having runners like Eamonn Coghlan, John Hartnett and Marty Liquori as
training partners ,he never seemed to realise his enormous potential. Maurice also coached the
very talented Derek Reilly ( “Dicey” ) and Martin “Bambi” Greene. All won scholarships to the U.S .
and had successful careers there . Maurice eventually , however , came to reject the whole American
scholarship concept believing that many , if not most, of these young athletes were lost to his
beloved Clonliffe and, indeed , to Ireland.
( **440 yards =402.336m. , 880 yards =804.672m. The time differential between 880 and 800m. was
generally accepted as 0.7 seconds.)
Maurice became Captain of Clonliffe in the Autumn of 1971 – and there has never been a captain
with such ill luck . The big target , as usual back then , was to end the dominance of Donore Harriers
in the National Senior Cross Country Championship. Maurice had assembled a strong squad and, on
the day of the Championship in Clonmel, Clonliffe packed three into the top 10 . Pádraig Keane
( still a Junior) was 6 th . , and he was closely followed by Danny McDaid and Brendan Mooney ( having
joined the year before from Sligo.) Our fourth scorer was 15 th . Normally this would be good enough
to win easily but the amazing Donore team ,packing all four scorers into the top 9, still managed to
pip us by a single point. Heartbreak for Clonliffe and for Maurice.
By this time, Maurice had started making a very productive and worthwhile life for himself . He
married his beloved Moira and they reared six children ,five boys and one girl, at least four of
whom became runners themselves ( Did they have a choice ? ! ) They moved to the beautiful seaside
village of Malahide, one of the most desirable locations in Dublin . He had his own business –
Cloghran Batteries –well established by now and we often wondered how he managed to get time
for everything : family , business and sport .
Clonliffe was his second home but he also managed to make time to play some golf and tennis.
Indeed he has been a lover of most sports all his life . His sporting hero, when he was a boy, was the
legendary Christy Ring . ( So, OK , the guy was a wizard with a hurl but the fact that he was a Cork
man like Maurice’s dad just might also have had something to do with it ! ). When he took up
running , he idolised Peter Snell, winner of three Olympic Gold medals in the 800m. and 1500m. , a
man with a big strong physique like Maurice himself . A faithful follower of The Dubs. , of course, he
has revelled in their dominance in recent years . A lifelong Manchester United fan too, he has
travelled to Old Trafford many times and has been to many of the iconic sporting events all around
the world : Italia 90 in the Stadio Olimpico in Rome , tennis in Wimbledon and the Olympic Games
in Sydney . He estimates that , between hurling and football , he has attended 130 All Ireland Finals !
He has been present at some of the most memorable occasions in sport – none more so than that
epic mile in Santry in 1958 when Herb Elliott smashed the world record with 3:54.5.
Maurice continued to serve his beloved Clonliffe as a coach and as a Trustee. In 1975 he became
Secretary and was instrumental in effecting huge , and much needed , improvements to the
infrastructure of the Club. Hard work and shrewd financial management by Maurice and the
Committee saw the demolition of the old ,rusting Nissen hut and the erection of badly needed new
dressing rooms as well as the upgrading of the bar. All housed under the Terrace. A committee room
( known rather grandiosely as The Board Room ) was also built at this time . The process of
negotiating the hand over of the track to The Department of Education and Fingal County Council
was also begun. This was a protracted business and Maurice, together with President Alex Sweeney ,
Treasurer Denis Noonan and committee member John O’Leary , was to the fore in the tortuous
negotiations. The hand over , which was strongly resisted by a section of the Club , was finally
completed in 1980 and saw the laying of a state of the art tartan track , only the second of its kind in
Ireland.
The 80s brought unparalleled success in cross country with the Club , under Paddy Marley’s
captaincy winning seven national Cross Country titles in that decade .But this decade also brought a
financial crisis which , in the words of Tom O’Riordan writing in The Irish Independent , “ threatened
the very existence of Clonliffe Harriers”. However, the wise leadership of the then President ,
Thomas Griffin ( Senior ), the hard graft by long standing members such as Laro Byrne and John
O’Leary together with the accountancy expertise of Maurice, ensured that the Club weathered the
storm and built back stronger than ever.
Maurice was elected Club President in 1991 . He was becoming more and more deeply involved in
politics at this time . His brother Bertie , of course , was Minister for Finance from 1992 for three
years and became leader of Fianna Fáil in 1994. As President , Maurice led the Clonliffe delegation
which renegotiated the deal which had been hammered out in 1980 between the club , the
Department of Education and Sport and Fingal County Council . This led not only to the re-surfacing
of the track and the building of a state of the art indoor facility , but also to the building of a new
Club house which opened in 1995 . This, our new “home “ contained dressing rooms, gym and bar
and was a long way removed from the Nissen hut and , indeed , the dressing rooms under the
terrace . This permanent home is s lasting tribute to a lifetime of work by Maurice for his beloved
Black and Amber .
Indeed it briefly looked as if the National Indoor Athletics Arena would be located in Santry (which
now, due to Maurice’s promptings , was officially known as the Home of Irish Athletics) when the
then Minister of Sport , Jim McDaid , said as much in a reception and press conference in the
Stadium in July 2000. Sadly , it was not to be and ,as we now know, the indoor stadium was located
on the Sport Ireland Campus in Abbotstown . As a member of the Irish Sports Council, Maurice
worked tirelessly for the betterment of sport-particularly athletics – in Ireland .
In July 2000. Maurice had his greatest political success when he was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin by
the City Council. He certainly didn’t “ lose the run of himself” when he occupied this lofty position.
On the contrary , he was extremely hospitable and generous to his fellow Clonliffe members ,
hosting a number of events and receptions ,including the Club A.G.M.,in the Mansion House, later
that year.
Maurice continued his role as coach even after he retired as Lord Mayor and President of Clonlffe .
Every Tuesday evening ,even to this day , Maurice can be found putting his group of athletes
through their training . He repeats this every Saturday in his favourite training grounds ,the
beautiful, idyllic Malahide Park. Though now in his 80s, Maurice has lost little ,if any ,of his energy
and enthusiasm. He has kept himself remarkably fit ; for many years he set himself an interesting
target : in his 50s he was still able to run a mile in 5 minutes, in his 60s he dipped under 6 minutes
for the mile and in his 70s, yes he managed to break 7 minutes for the classic distance . We are
awaiting an update on whether he managed to keep this sequence going ! And , despite his
disappointment in 1968 , he did not abandon the marathon completely. When the running boom
was sparked off by the advent of the Dublin City Marathon in 1980, Maurice laced up his Tigers
again. ( Ask your grandad ). And, though now in his early 40s , Maurice came close to his youthful
PB , running 2:47. (No , it was not the shoes : we still were a long way from the carbon plates and the
ten tiers of foam .) His justifiably proud boast is that he has always broken 3 hours for the
marathon. On one occasion he had agreed to accompany a fellow club man, a first time marathoner,
to the 20 mile mark in the Dublin marathon. Another Clonliffe man was then due to take over and
nurse the main man to the finish line. But this individual ( who must remain nameless ) failed to
show up and so Maurice volunteered to run the final six crucial miles with the novice. As every
distance runner knows, it’s an athlete’s nightmare to believe he is finishing a long race at a certain
point, only to be told on reaching that point he has a considerable distance still to go. And , even in
those unfavourable circumstances , Maurice still managed to break the 3 hour barrier while cursing
the man who failed to show at the agreed rendezvous with every step ( It later transpired that the
“guilty party” was actually engaged in good Samaritan work tending to another club mate who had
collapsed . So all was forgiven and he and Maurice are still the best of friends )
Maurice and Moira suffered appalling heartbreak in 2009 when their son Dylan died suddenly . But
Maurice , showing all the resilience of the long distance runner , survived this dreadful event and ,
true to form, instituted an annual commemorative race in his son’s honour . What better way to
keep the memory of a young man , a runner himself , alive ?
Maurice , indeed , has also made heroic attempts to ensure that the memory and legacy of many
famous former members of the Club are not forgotten . He instigated the Michael Murphy Memorial
Race in memory of one of our brightest young prospects , Mick Murphy, who was tragically killed in
a car crash in the U.S.A in 1981. Michael was a lad of immense promise who had just graduated
with an Engineering degree and was pursuing a Master’s in California .
He has always been a great organiser and this was never more evident than in 1981 when he
organised the Clonliffe 20. This historic race had been in decline for some time, but that year,
Maurice decided to rejuvenate it and boy , did he succeed ! He managed to source generous
sponsorship for prizes and this attracted all the finest distance runners in the country . On a cool day
in April , with a gale force wind on the runners’ backs , the winner Paddy Murphy from Kildare came
home first in a super fast time of 1hour 38 minutes. Jerry Kiernan , running his first ever race longer
than 10 miles , came home 5 th . in 1:43. Ten athletes ran 1:45 or faster that day and Maurice was
justifiably proud of his achievement in organising the fastest 20 miler ever run on Irish soil.
Maurice has also done a huge amount of work in maintaining various Club races which are named
after men who contributed so much to building up the club in years gone by. The O’Connor Cup, The
Irwin Cup , The Walker Cup , and many ,many more are still held every year in remembrance of
those pioneers, without whom the Club might have ceased to exist . Maurice ( and John O’Leary )
also made Herculean efforts to find the magnificent trophies which accompany these races and their
efforts are certainly appreciated by the families and descendants of the men they commemorate .
Before each race , Maurice insists on giving a short résumé of the person who is being remembered
to the assembled competitors : a very admirable and worthwhile gesture in ensuring that the
memory of those marvellous people is not forgotten. Some younger members may appear impatient
as they shuffle nervously for the race to start but Maurice’s eulogy-like comments remind us all that
“ As we are now, so they were once “ ( to paraphrase the well known reminder of our mortality ) and
that “ At the going down of the sun and in the morning , We ( should) remember them .”
And so , Maurice continues on , still making a massive contribution to the sport he loves . He can be
found coaching his group of athletes still every Saturday morning in his beloved Malahide Park. In
Summer time he will be present every Tuesday in Santry, timing , instructing and encouraging his
protégés . He still dons his own shorts and t-shirt and does a series of short reps. or intervals before
and after his group finish their session. He has ran on grass ,road , cinders , tartan and mondo. He
has seen it all but his enthusiasm is as strong as ever and his love of athletics is undimmed . He has a
passionate love for Clonliffe –his second family-and it annoys him and pains him in equal measure to
see athletes not wearing their Club vests in competition . ( And, like Laro ,he also disapproves of
anybody wearing his club vest in training ) He epitomises the spirit of this great old club and future
generations of young Harriers will owe him a debt of gratitude for the legacy which he is leaving
them. Our wish for Maurice is : Ad multos annos !
*The only longer serving member of the Club is Maurice’s lifelong friend, the evergreen,
indefatigable Johnny O’ Leary.