Cork Dragon Club 'pulled me up and made me stronger'

A breast cancer survivor and member of the Cork Dragon Club features in an uplifting RTÉ TV documentary tonight that is about these boat clubs all over Ireland which cater for people directly or indirectly affected by cancer.

Ann Marie O’Sullivan is in a buoyant mood, having made a good recovery from breast cancer. She picked up a leaflet in a hospital waiting room about the Cork Dragon Club and, when she was well enough, she decided to sign up.

Dragon boat racing is an ancient Chinese sport and is now one of the fastest-growing water sports worldwide.

In the 1990s, the sport was trialled by researchers in Canada as a treatment for breast cancer survivors. They found that the sport boosts upper body strength in breast cancer patients and survivors and, as a result, has positive psychological effects.

When Ann Marie, a writer and mother of a 12-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl, was diagnosed with breast cancer in June, 2020, she recalls how she felt “betrayed” by her body.

“I felt my body was working against me and was kind of sneaky in that it had developed this very dangerous disease without me knowing. It came at a time when I felt really healthy so I felt a bit betrayed.”

However, the Cork Dragon Club has given Ann Marie back her confidence.

“It gave me the ability to recognise how well my body did to bring me through chemotherapy.

“After each round, I would be knocked for six, but (the club) pulled me up and made me stronger.

“Also, it’s such a positive group, a lovely energy to be around. It’s very special.”

Ann Marie says that there is “something lovely about the whole boat working together in unison It’s kind of hypnotic as well, on the river. Timing is vital on the boat.”

It was five years ago this month, around April in 2020, when Ann Marie was writing in her office that she noticed a lump in her armpit. It was about the size of a pea and it felt sore.

“But I wasn’t overly alarmed,” she recalls. “There was no sign of anything in my breast. Because it was sore and it wasn’t going away, I decided to ring the doctor.”

Because of the recently-arrived covid virus, the doctors’ surgery was closed, as medics tried to figure out how to operate during the pandemic.

A week passed and Ann Marie got through to her doctor who told her to keep an eye on the lump. Two weeks later, she noticed that the lump was the size of a grape.

“I was getting concerned. I could feel something in my breast but not always. I was referred to Cork University Hospital. The consultant took a while to find the lump within my breast.

“I went for a mammogram and an ultrasound. Six biopsies were taken. There were three lumps, one at the back of my breast which I couldn’t feel.

“There was a small one in my breast and one in my armpit.”

The lump under Ann Marie’s arm was too big to operate on. It was shrunk by chemotherapy. In December, 2020, she was operated on.

Initially, Ann Marie says she had a silent shock response to her diagnosis. It was a difficult time during the pandemic, with not much access to hospitals, and delays in getting scanned.

Her husband was home-schooling the children and doing the caring. But fortunately, the doctors were really happy that they had cleared Ann Marie’s cancer.

“The chemotherapy had gone really well and the operation was a textbook success. I then had radiotherapy in January, 2021.”

Ann Marie and her husband were very open about her condition to their children, watching YouTube videos on how to talk to young children about cancer.

She had always noticed boats going up and down the River Lee. But she didn’t think she’d be able to row as she didn’t consider herself sporty or fit enough.

“I wasn’t thinking of being on the river,” says Ann Marie. “I was thinking about my appointments.

“But in October, 2021, I rang the Cork Dragon Club. They were so lovely and welcoming. They were taking the boats out of the water for the winter, coming back the following March. That suited me as I was in a better position health-wise to be considering going out on the water.

“It was a big shift in my health after having felt so low from the chemotherapy.”

Ann Marie has lymphoedema in her arm, which causes swelling. She says that being out in the water helps it.

However, she isn’t able to go rowing at the moment because of work commitments. But the Cork Dragon Club will always be there for her.

“It’s really nice to be part of a group of people who’ve had a similar experience. But it’s not really like a group therapy-type thing.

“If you have any questions or concerns, everybody and anybody are happy to talk to you about it. There is no taboo. It’s a very open group.

“You can come and go. People are willing to share what they know but it’s not a prerequisite that you have to talk about cancer.”

Ann Marie goes for regular check-ups now, is feeling much stronger, and is “dying to be out on the water”. She adds: “I’m delighted to be part of Cork Dragons. I think they offer a lot to the city.

“Cork is a gorgeous city and being on the river is a privilege.”

The documentary on RTÉ1 tonight visits Cork and other places across Ireland where dragon boat clubs have been thriving.

Just like with Ann Marie’s experience, they have become a great way for people to connect with each other and with nature out on the waterways, while boosting fitness levels in this most physical of sports and healing mind, body, and spirit.

A life-affirming programme, it is not just about sport and competition, but about survival, living with purpose, and finding joy - even in the toughest of times.

The documentary meets some of the many people who have taken up the sport in recent years, including Mark O’Connor, one of the founding members of the Cork Dragon Boat Club.

From Dublin to Donegal, Carlow, Sligo, Mayo and Cork, these are ordinary people who have been brought together in the worst of circumstances, now bonded in competitive camaraderie, as they share their stories.

In Ireland, the first Dragon Boat Club was set up in 2010 in Dublin.

Dragon Hearts introduces viewers to some of the Plurabelle Paddlers who first brought the sport to Ireland, and we meet members of some of the clubs they have supported nationally over the past decade, including Carlow Warriors, Medb’s Dragon Warriors in Sligo, the Gráinne Mhaol Dragon Boat Club in Mayo, and the Donegal Dragons.

With exquisite photography and glorious aerial and underwater footage, we follow men and women from these clubs through a season of training and racing.

As they battle it out at events across the country, the documentary chronicles their triumphs and tribulations, capturing moments of joy, pain, loss, and victory.

We watch them train tirelessly, compete fiercely, and support one another. Each stroke of the paddle carries meaning, not just in the physical sense, but as a marker of each rower’s individual battle with breast cancer.

Dragon Hearts is on RTÉ1 this evening at 6.30pm and on the RTÉ Player.