John Arnold: Ronnie had gene for speed... gift of gab runs in my family
Winning the gold medal for the 1500 metres at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne was Delany’s crowning glory.
As an indoor runner, he had won 40 consecutive races, but the Olympic gold was so special to him and to the people of Ireland.
Down the years, he relived the finish of that race so often and always spoke - not of himself winning but of the ‘gift’ he had been given.
The never-to-be-forgotten image of Delany falling to his knees, joining his hands in prayer, blessing himself and looking heaven-wards was only equalled in 1996 when Wexford’s George O’Connor did the very same after the final whistle of that year’s All Ireland Hurling Final.
Ronnie Delany was a humble hero and never wallowed in his own greatness - and he truly was a great athlete and a great human being. One could well say that he trained hard and prepared mentally and physically for Melbourne, therefore the win was his and his alone with no ‘outside’ factors involved, yet something special differentiates the great from the good.
Who bears and gives the ‘gift’ Ronnie spoke of? Was it his father and mother whose DNA he bore - their genes and characteristics undoubtedly aided their son in his athletic pursuits. There’s no arguing with that, yet that intangible ‘something else’ had a huge bearing on his success.
Delany was a man of faith, faith in a Higher Power, in God and he never shirked from that belief.
I would have loved to have been a good hurler or footballer - not maybe up to inter-county standard but a ‘handy’ club hurler would truly have satisfied my sporting appetite.
Doris Day sang the lines ‘ ’ - for me, it was a case of not now or never as regards athletic or sporting prowess! Was I upset? Yeah, a little alright as I loved and love Gaelic Games and would have given my right arm to master the skills. But when I nearly took the left arm off a fellow team-mate in an under-16 match, my fate was sealed!
Don’t talk to me about talk - well, do actually. My grandfather’s sister Auntie Lizzie (O’Keeffe) could, as they say, talk for Ireland. She died the year I was born and was a topper for ‘tracing’ - they say the apple never falls far from the tree and I love ‘climbing family trees’ to pick the ‘fruit’ of discovering connections which might have been hidden in the mists of time.
Last week, after my uncle Sean’s funeral, six of us second cousins chatted, conversed, conflabbed, traced, and chatted for close on three hours! That gift came to us surely from our grandfather John Twomey and his sister Auntie Lizzie.
I’m not sure if records are kept or were ever kept of the length of conversations, but if such records were available, mam and her first cousin May Forde would be challenging for an Olympic talking medal - gold like Ronnie Delany’s I’d say without a doubt!
In fairness to myself, I do love a good chat and have picked up a fair share of yarns, tales tall, and small and great stories over several decades. Last Tuesday, I was invited to talk to the people of Ballintotis and also the senior elders of Ballycotton and Shanagarry.
Oh lads, I absolutely adore occasions like these - entertaining people and making a few euros for deserving charities.
When I heard the song .
Yes, we can often seem to be going through a valley of tears with no obvious ‘exit strategy’. No denying that war, disease, poverty, climate change, and bigotry are woeful blights in this wonderful world of ours, but let’s not despair.
I’m not sure if I have a ‘gift’ for making people laugh, but others seem to think so. If so, well, then I’m truly grateful for that gift -a rare jewel indeed.
I suppose God-given gifts have to be nurtured and developed – ‘trained’ even - and talking comes easy to me!
In the Bible, we heard of the parable of the talents - just another way of saying different people have and get different abilities, and using them correctly makes all the difference.
American President Theodore Roosevelt has often been credited with a quotation which he himself denied in his own autobiography. ‘Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are’, was actually coined by Roosevelt’s friend, William Meek ‘Squire Bill’ Widener. It’s a perfect formula and blueprint for life and living.
Now, I know I can’t spend all day, every day, telling jokes and singing songs, but even God himself knows we need ‘diversion’ and the ability to laugh at ourselves.
It brings to my mind young Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes who suffered from asthma and tuberculosis. Yet despite constant pain and infirmity, she was a practical joker who loved playing tricks on people!
You know, I’m often asked, ‘How do you remember all the stories and yarns?’ The truth of course is I don’t and I can’t! ‘In one ear and out the other’, could well describe my ‘recording ability’ but I’ve learned tricks of the trade down the years which help the grey matter become more absorbent. On Tuesday night, I was reminded of a wise saying of a friend of mine, Bill Callaghan, who died before Christmas: “A blunt pencil is better than a bad memory”. It’s a kind of guideline I try and observe - write it down.
Hal Roach, ‘the king of Blarney’, always quipped ‘Write it down, it’s a good one’.
I‘ve hundreds of pages and scraps of paper with one-liners, jokes, quotations, anecdotes and stories and from these I get inspiration. Seeing people with tears of laughter streaming down their cheeks is a joy beyond compare.
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