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1950's Take one bicycle with a broken frame, a team van that won’t go, fall off and injure your leg, wreck your bike on a bad corner and wait two minutes for a spare machine, get a spare machine with a flat tyre and in between times take a wrong turning, win a stage, take a second and a third on two other stages and finish well up on the other five days. I might add that Ben hopes to win again this year, but intends to use a slightly less complicated formula for success. As he says himself ”There must be a simpler way of doing it.” Ben is without a doubt Mr. Rás Tailteann himself, for since the marathon started in 1954, he most definitely has the outstanding record of any competitor to date. He made his debut in the race at the tender age of eighteen, in 1956 and to his utter amazement managed to finish twenty-ninth. The following year he was third and King Of The Mountains. In 1958 he improved to second and last year of course he won it. Not even Gene Mangan could rid himself of the un-welcome attentions of his fifty odd rivals when he started out in 1956, and here was Ben, faced with the task odd getting rid of almost twice as many challengers. Had I known then what I know now about Ben’s pre-start adventures I would definitely have tried to cajole a few suckers into making a sizeable bet. How lucky I was, for I’d have lost. Ben won. His misadventures started the week before the race when his frame broke. Try as he could, another one could not be got, not even the one he had won in the Tour of Ulster two day race. The day before Rás Tailteann, a local garage man, Jimmy Courtney, a brother, incidentally, of Jack Courtney, who was team manager of the Meath team, welded the break for him. The Meath contingent set out for Dublin early on August Sunday morning in their team van all set to do or die. As it turned out they would have been better off to have set out on foot for as one of them aptly put it “ Then we’d only have had to walk. That would have been a ---------- of a lot easier than pushing that so and so van all the way to Dublin” So our hero duly arrived at the start with a welded frame and having expended more energy pushing the recalcitrant van they would have won a stage for him. Needless to say he was not feeling very happy when the race shot out of Dublin as if the Devil himself was in hot pursuit. Not even Ben McKenna could win that stage. Donoghue did as well he deserved it. There has never been an exhibition of such aggressive riding as Cecil put on for the 105 miles from Dublin to Dundalk. However to get back to McKenna. As He Crossed the line down the field, browned off, gruelled and discouraged he got a message that made him forget all his hardships. The elusive frame had arrived from Belfast. Rising early next morning himself and mechanic J. O’Connor soon changed all the equipment from the broken frame, which miraculously had held together, and on to the new one. They did a good job for in spite of the statistics which prove that such last minute repairs just cannot be done successfully, the bike held together for the rest of the week except when it was damaged in a fall. However, more of this anon. Stage Two Stage Two saw many prayers being offered up for the race organiser, who had routed the race over a course of one hundred and forty something miles to take the riders the fifty odd miles from Dundalk to Longford. However, Ben was the exception, for he felt himself getting fit and able to make his presence felt, although not placed in the final tally for the day. The third day’s racing was a one hundred and twenty mile course over western roads and taking the field from Longford to Westport Ben attacked early, with no more that twenty miles covered he was away in the leading group, which stayed clear all day. A few miles to go the 1959 race winner Kerry’s Mick Murphy gave the leading group the slip and Kildare man Paddy Flanagan half wheeled Ben down into third place over the line. This stage, as it later turned out, was one of the vital days of the race and Ben with his uncanny instinct for the now-or-never moves in a race was there. Unlike the previous two days this big brake came right at the start and although he was not in it he was in the next one which duly made contact with the fugitives from a hard riding bunch which was scattered over ten miles of Connaught roads at the end of the day The Rás Tailteann riders had to climb it with one hundred miles of the fourth successive day’s racing in their legs. As the race lined up at the start in Westport, McKenna waited impatiently as the preliminaries, the speeches, the presentation of the yellow jersey to Gerry Meehan and all the other details that are part and parcel of the starting process of the day’s racing in Rás Tailteann were gone through. This was it. If he was to pull the race out of the fire he would have to be up to-day. The narrow twisty roads, that made up the major part of the day’s course were of no great help to anyone, but Ben managed to get into all the vital brakes and with fifty miles to go was one of a ten man group, in the lead, about five minutes ahead of the posse. The word came up that the bunch was chasing very hard and was closing the gap and the breakaway group that previously was going as hard as it could now had to go even harder. With the whips out in earnest the weaker started to crack one by one they dropped back until only five men were left. Ben, Mick Palmer, who had been race leader at the end of stage three, Frank Thompson who was at that time race leader on the road, Shay Murphy and Shay O’Hanlon Without a doubt the unhappiest man in the group was the Meath man. Once more the team van was being uncooperative and he had no food or drink for miles. The little man with the hammer was having a field day. He hung on grimly awaiting the inevitable final onslaught of the “bonk” that was fast over-whelming him. However the U.S. Cavalry was on the way in the form of N.C.A. Racing Secretary, Jim Reilly who was on holidays in Galway. Typical bike man that he is Jim could not resist the lure of the “Eight Day”. As he drew alongside in a gaily decorated car, Bearing among other legends the comment “Don’t laugh lady, your daughter may be inside.” Ben’s sagging morale started to rise. The necessary refreshments came up in the proverbial flash and in the sprint of the line at Ennis, Palmer pipped Shay O’Hanlon who was inches in front of Ben. Frank Thompson, who was fourth took over the race leader’s jersey, with McKenna breathing down his neck a mere 10 seconds behind. As Thompson slept that night he must have almost literally felt McKenna’s breath on his shoulders for on the next day, the Ennis –Tralee stage, the Yellow Jersey was to change hands for the last time in the race….on to Ben McKenna broad shoulders. There it was fated to stay. Ben’s own description of this stage breaks a world record for eloquent brevity. He says. By now I was really fit and on stage five into Tralee, I got up to beat John Gearon, Shay Murphy and Ronnie Williams, I took over the race leadership by two and a half minuets. Stage Six That was what they thought. Disillusionment was soon to follow As the field raced towards Fermoy, misfortune struck again corning at speed Ben made slight error of judgement that ninety-nine times out of a hundred would have meant nothing but a scare. This time, of course, it meant disaster and down he came to wreck his bicycle. I will not dwell upon what followed. It will be sufficient to say that the spare machine did not come up for two minuets. If Ben thought that this was his quota of bad luck for the day, he was greatly mistaken for he was far from finished with misfortune. When the spare arrived it had a flat tyre. We’ll draw a merciful curtain over the incident, too, for there is worse to come. Ben eventually gave chase and in his own inimitable style began to catch and drop stragglers to get within less than a minute of the main bunch as the finish drew near. Then the hoodoo struck again. This time it was a matter of a wrong turn but he was soon back on course again and at the line in Fermoy he was ninety seconds behind the winner. Stage Seven The bruising disappointments and efforts of the previous day had taken their toll and the second last day’s racing which took the field of almost eighty racers from Fermoy to Waterford will long be the day Ben wants to forget. Before the stage started the Red Cross Ambulance Crew which follows the race had a field day in patching up his cuts and bruises and during the day his dutiful team mates stood by him and helped him on his painful way, more help came from an unexpected source in the person of Cork rider Dick Barry, who also did his bit. But for all these people Ben would not have finished. And it was, he held on to his lead by the narrowest of margins. Once again in his darkest hour the sun broke through. This time by a strange quirk of fate he was saved by the rule, which gives the Race Leader a one minute bonus immediately he starts each day’s course. The one second by which he had held on to his lead on the seventh stage qualified him for this bonus at the start of the final day’s racing and paved the way for his final victory. This was indeed a well deserved break for it was this self same rule that had beaten him the previous year. In1958 he had actually the fastest time over the course but Mick Murphy’s bonuses had given the victory to the Kerryman. Ben had accepted this with his customary good sportsmanship saying: “Bonuses are part of the race and I just did not qualify for them. I have no crib.” Inwardly however he must have felt sore, little realising that he was to be glad of them within the space of twelve short months. Stage Eight Ben himself sums up the last day’s stage from Waterford, up over the Wicklow Gap to Dublin in just four words…”Watching and hanging on.” He was not fully recovered from the severe mental and physical gruelling he had received on the previous stages and to add to his troubles his gears started to misbehave. At the top of the Wicklow Gap he had actually lost his race lead for at that point he was two minuets behind Ronnie Williams, the man who had failed by just one second to take the Yellow Jersey off him on the previous day. They have a saying in Kerry that “a man is not down ‘till he’s dead and he’s not dead until he’s three weeks buried.” I strongly suspect that they have a similar one in Meath, for Ben was down but was far from being dead. The main cause of his slow climb of the Wicklow Gap was that he could not get his gear to engage in the climbing ratios. Now at the top he was able to ride the high gears without difficulty and began the fight back. The final miles into Dublin will be debated for many years. McKenna was in a seven or eight man group which contained four Dublin-men, any three of whom could have snatched a dramatic last stage win. He was in a tight spot, battered, bruised, tired, with-out team support and he was faced by four rivals, three of whom had every reason to have a go. It looked as if he was in for the biggest gruelling of his life with the inevitable result being the loss of his race lead. However the Dublinmen did not attack. Why, we will never know. It is easy to say that they should have but the face is that they did not. It is easy to say attack when sitting comfortably in a motor car. It is another thing to do it when sitting on the saddle of the bicycle concerned. Perhaps the Dublinmen’s failure to have a cut at him is the best tribute that could have been paid to Ben McKenna in the 1959 Rás Tailteann for when four racing cyclists fail to take their chance and attack a rival, it is not because they love him. Ben was the best rider in the 1959 Rás Tailteann. If the Dublin team could have dropped him in those final miles into Dublin, they would have done so. I’ll go further and say that he was the best man in any Rás Tailteann since the race started. His win was an epic one, that may never be repeated. Rás Tailteann Stage 2: Dundalk To Longford 128 Miles. Stage 3: Longford To Westport 116 Miles. Stage 4: Westport To Ennis 134 Miles. Stage 5: Ennis To Tralee 108 Miles. Stage 6: Tralee To Fermoy 120 miles. Stage 7: Fermoy To Waterford 100 Miles. Stage 8: Waterford To Dublin 118 Miles. Race Director: Joe Christle Stage Winners Stage 1: Dublin To Dundalk 104 Miles. C. O'Donoghue (Dublin) 4.22-32 Stage 2: Dundalk to Longford 134 Miles. M. Palmer (Mayo) 5-55-40 Stage 3: Longford To Westport 120 Miles. M. Murphy (Kerry) 5-50-00 Stage 4: Westport To Ennis 134 Miles. M.Palmer (Mayo) 6-20-00 Stage 5: Ennis To Tralee 110 Miles. B. McKenna (Meath) 4-44-35 Stage 6: Tralee To Fermoy 130 Miles. D. Byrne (Wexford) 4-40-00 Stage 7: Fermoy To Waterford 100 Miles. C. McLynn (Antrim) 4-16-10 Stage 8 : Waterford To Dublin 120 Miles. M.Murphy (Kerry) 6-02-30 It was August 8th 1959. The day did not start out particularly well as myself and the team were “in recovery” after an evening socialising with the journalists covering the race, Tom Cryon and Con Kenealy, (hoping, of course, for a mention in their reports!.) Despite feeling very delicate at the Start next morning, (due to my over indulgence) we left Fermoy, and I settled myself in the comfort of the middle of the bunch, as. we headed for Mitchellstown. As the morning went on, and we neared Caher, I began to feel better and started to take on food and drink, and towards Tipperary I found myself starting to take a bit of interest in the proceeding and moved up towards the front. At that point in the race, the leaders, Dan Ahern and Eamon Ryan, were 40 secs. ahead of some other good riders, Victor Atkinson, John Egan, James Roches, Cahal O’Donoghue , Eamonn Reilly and Mike Woods. As we pulled them back a group of riders, including my team-mate Jim McConway, were at hand, and I called on him to join me as I made a break, Jim, however ,was tiring ,having tried hard all day, and declined. Eventually eleven riders, working together, managed to reach the leaders, and we were then a bunch of nineteen, just as we reached Carrick-on-Suir, and we stayed together for the next sixteen miles. As I saw the bridge into Waterford approaching in the distance I decided to make a bid for the front and moved to the inside for the first corner, taking a chance that I could be boxed in, but, with elbows akimbo, I managed to retain my place, and we went into the second bend down to seven riders only, lead by Mick Murphy. The six of us clung to his back wheel, streaming and weaving like the tail of a kite, and at the last 880 - 440 - 220, I MADE IT THROUGH AND WON THE STAGE! Result: 1st.Cormac Mac Lynn (Antrim), 2nd.Mick Murphy (Kerry) 3rd.TomWheelan (Tipperary) 4th.Ronnie Williams (Dublin) 5th.Pat O’Callaghan (Waterford) 6th.Paddy Flanagan,(Kildare) 7th.Christy Dunne (Exiles) My reward was a huge and beautifully cut Waterford vase, which has graced our living room, (and has been filled regularly with very expensive flowers by my wife, who loves it,) and it serves as a lovely reminder to me of what was, without doubt, one of the best days in my life. By Cormack Mac Lynn General Classification 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. B. McKenna, Meath, R. Williams, Dublin S. Murphy, Dublin P. Flanagan, Kildare D. Ahern, Kerry 43- 12-27 01-01 03-35 03-37 03-59 The Competitors Of The 1959 Rás
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