Even before Mayo ended their great All-Ireland drought this year, Frank Greally had been in the habit, from time to time, of doing something called the “Gratitude Walk”.
His primary cause for gratitude was just being alive. Born prematurely in June 1951 at the Coombe Hospitalin Dublin, he wasn’t expected to survive. Hence his first ever journey, to an emergency baptism in nearby Francis Street.
But survive he did to grow up in Ballyhaunis and become, among other things, a fine athlete, whose Irish national junior record for 10,000m lasted half a century.
So six years ago, mid-pandemic, he embarked on his first Gratitude Walk, from the Coombe to Ballyhaunis. Then last June, to celebrate his 75th birthday, he repeated the trek in the opposite direction.
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By summer’s end, his many blessings would include having lived to see the end of a supposed Mayo GAA curse that began when he was still in a pram. With renewed gratitude for the wonders of life, therefore, he is now walking again.
On Monday, he left the village of Inniskeen, Co Monaghan, at the start of a leisurely stroll to Dublin.
This route is not as long as his marathon hikes between the Liberties and Mayo. But for a devoted fan of Patrick Kavanagh, it has great historic resonance, replicating a walk the poet himself made in 1931 when he set out to visit Dublin for the first time.
[ Autumn reflection: Frank McNally finds poetic cheer in the October gloomOpens in new window ]
Kavanagh took three days to cover the 60 miles or so. Greally is in less of a hurry, partly because he’s taking time out along the route to visit schools and promote the Daily Mile, a scheme encouraging children to do at least 15 minutes’ exercise a day.
Another difference from 1931 is that, unlike his predecessor, he’s not wearing hobnail boots. Kavanagh’s footwear was hand-made by his father, a cobbler. The profession was beginning to suffer then from mechanised mass production. But the young poet who walked to Dublin was a champion of the hand-made product.
On which note, and speaking of All Irelands, his journey to Dublin came soon after what is still Monaghan’s only appearance in a senior men’s final, against Kerry in 1930.
Many reasons were advanced subsequently for their 18-point hammering, but perhaps the least convincing was Kavanagh blaming it on Monaghan’s factory-made boots, which in the wet conditions, he claimed, had “turned to paper”.
A more worrying change for walkers in the intervening decades is the quantity and speed of traffic on Ireland’s roads. There were very few cars in 1931, and Kavanagh would have been far from alone in travelling by foot.
But almost nobody walks in rural Ireland any more, or if they do, it’s an extreme sport. Speaking to me on the phone somewhere between Slane and Ashbourne during the week, Greally confirmed that roads were much scarier for walkers than they used to be.
It might be imagination, he admits, but even in the past few years, traffic seems to have speeded up: “Everyone is in such a blooming hurry now.” This may also be true of life in general: all the more reason for him to take time out and give thanks.
Happily, he has been blessed with some very good company along the route, including Thomas Ruddy, an Inniskeen historian, and more recently Herbie McClelland, an old friend from Donore Harriers athletic club.
Then there is the logistical back-up of Seán Callan, his bagman from Ardee. He has also enjoyed moral and spiritual support from Kavanagh stalwarts Art Agnew and his sister Una, author of one of Greally’s favourite books, The Mystical Imagination of Patrick Kavanagh: A Buttonhole in Heaven.
When he’s not walking, Greally is running, or writing about running, or organising races. In 1981 he founded Irish Runner magazine, which is still – yes – running after all these years, with him now as consultant editor.
And next month he will host his annual Remembrance Run, a 5k in which participants commemorate lost loved ones. It was first held in 2012 to mark the then recent death of his friend Con Houlihan. The latest instalment, on November 8th, will be Houlihan’s and the event’s 15th anniversary.
[ Frank Greally’s startling exposition of the secret selfOpens in new window ]
As with his Ballyhaunis walks, the Dublin end of the current route includes a hospital. Not the Coombe this time, but – in keeping with the Kavanagh theme – St James’s.
That was where the poet underwent treatment for lung cancer in 1955, recovery from which inspired one of his finer sonnets, describing an unexpected outbreak of love he felt afterwards for such local banalities as “Rialto Bridge” and “the inexhaustible adventure of a gravelled yard”.
Some of Frank Greally’s inexhaustible adventures are detailed on his website, gratitude.ie. The end of the latest walk, meanwhile, will be at 2pm on Friday, at the seated Kavanagh sculpture near Baggot Street Bridge.
