Thousands attend Skibbereen homecoming for Paris Olympic rowing champions

An estimated 10,000 people took to the streets of Skibbereen yesterday for a delayed but emotional Paris Olympics party as gold medal winners Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy led the homecoming parade of the local rowers who accounted for almost one quarter of Ireland’s entire rowing team in the French capital.

An open-top bus brought the Olympic athletes around Skibbereen town centre to a homecoming rally attended by Tánaiste Micheál Martin.

The parade included double Olympic gold medallists Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy as well as Mr ­McCarthy’s brother, Jake – who was the lightweight double sculls reserve – Olympic sculls finalists Aoife Casey and Emily Hegarty as well as acclaimed rowing coach Dominic Casey, all members of Skibbereen Rowing Club.

Mr O’Donovan became the first Irish athlete to win Olympic medals at three successive Games having won silver in Rio 2016, gold in Tokyo 2021 and now gold in Paris.

Fintan McCarthy has competed in two Olympic Games and won gold medals in each of the lightweight men’s double sculls.

He said the Los Angeles 2028 Games now loom large on their horizon.

Skibbereen now boasts an Olympic medal per every 414 residents – the largest concentration of Olympic rowing medals of any village, town or city on the planet.

The town of 2,903 residents with its world-famous rowing club also boasts seven individual Olympic rowing medals from three Games in the space of just eight years.

It has Olympic medals from four rowing events in three Games and now accounts for one-tenth of all Olympic medals won by Ireland in 100 years of competition.

The homecoming parade was led by various west Cork juvenile sports groups with several west Cork pipe bands providing musical accompaniment.

O’Donovan said it was “very special” to be able to bring an Olympic medal back to his hometown and to see the large crowds that turned out to celebrate their achievement.

“It is very special – they have provided great support for all the athletes over all the years. Skibbereen is a great town and everyone is in good spirits. Hopefully tonight will be a great night for everyone locally.

“It should be good fun, (but) I celebrate every night,” he said.

He added that his focus will now be on his ongoing medical training at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

McCarthy said he remembered being in the Skibbereen crowd for the open-top bus homecoming for O’Donovan after Rio 2016 and said he hoped the celebration would inspire other young athletes to pursue their dreams and work hard at their chosen sport.

“I honestly think it is just the atmosphere and the culture in Skibbereen Rowing Club. We train and we have people to look up to. It is literally a blueprint of how to succeed in rowing down there,” he said.

“I’m a bit older and a bit wiser now than in 2016. It has been a month since Paris and it is amazing to see the number of people who have turned out here today to welcome us home.

“To see the joy on people’s faces. There is another Olympic Games coming up in Los Angeles but we haven’t set our sights yet. Hopefully this isn’t the peak.

“Hopefully we can continue the success and see what happens.”

Tánaiste Micheál Martin said the rowers were an inspiration to everyone in Ireland.

“It is an extraordinary achievement for Skibbereen and for the rowing club here and for rowing Ireland in general to have four Olympians in this town,” he said. “I was back here in 2021 with very few people because of Covid when Paul and Fintan won the gold. And then after Rio we were here also and there was tremendous excitement.

“It really is an extraordinary feat and probably, without question, the town that has produced the most effective successful Olympians in the history of Irish Olympic participation.

“I really want to pay tribute to all concerned and to the four young athletes themselves who have carried themselves with great dignity, humility and reflected well on their coaches and their families and above all the community of Skibbereen.”

Bennie McGrath travelled to Skibbereen yesterday on the spur of the moment from Tullamore, Co Offaly, to honour the rowers.

“I just wanted to be here to show them that what they did for Ireland was appreciated. I actually get quite emotional thinking of how they are ordinary young people who have done extraordinary things for their country,” she said.

Marguerite McGouran, who travelled from Kinnegad in Co Westmeath, said: “It is incredible what they have done for Ireland. We were all so proud to see them represent Ireland in Paris and to bring home gold medals. They truly are an inspiration.”