Thomas F Kiely was an Irish Olympian from the start of the 20th century.
Location...Ballyneale is about 3 miles / 5 kms to the north-west of Carrick-on-Suir in the south-east of Co.Tipperary.
If you are coming from Clonmel then take the N24 for Carrick-on-Suir. Look for the turn off left about 4 kms east of Kilsheelan.
From Carrick-on-Suir, take the R696 and look for the turn off left.
The village is well sign posted from the N24, N76 and R696 roads. Unusually however, the signs on the N76 and R696 refer to it as 'Ballyneill' while the sign posts on the N24 say 'Ballyneale'. Either way, it's one and the same village.
Ballyneale itself is a very small village consisting of a church, a pub, a school and several houses.
From the organisers.....Race registration will be from 6pm at the school. Parking is available at the community sports field, 800 metres from the school. The race starts 200 metres from the school and includes one full circuit of the village and finishing at the community sports field. Tea and refreshments will be served at the sportsfield.
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| Entries at the school |
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| Course Profile |
After about 500m, it's right at the next junction and you head towards the sports field.....
As you approach the community sports field, you run past the finish line. Just beyond the sports ground, you take a right at the next junction...
This photo shows what this part of the course looks like......narrow country roads...
After 1.2 miles / 2 kms, there is a slight climb but it's nothing major. The photo below shows the junction at around 1.4 miles. You run up a slight incline and then take a right onto another narrow road...
At about 1.9 miles, you pass the old ruined church and graveyard...
At 2.3 miles, it's right at the T-junction.....
...then past the church around 2.4 miles...
...and the school at 2.5 miles.
From here, it's on to where the race started and you repeat part of the earlier loop to finish near the sports ground.
Overall..........A 5k course which is mostly flat and fast and is run mostly on quiet country roads. The elevation changes by only a few metres over its length so there are essentially no major hills or drags.
Additional historical information.........
Over a long career, he won at least seventy (70) Irish and British championships and set world records for the 56 lb. weight and hammer throws - he was the first man to throw the hammer more than 160 feet (48.8 metres). Kiely won the (English) AAA hammer championship for five of the six years 1897 - 1902, losing only in 1900 to the great John Flanagan.
By the time of the Third Olympic Games in St.Louis in 1904, Kiely was 34 years of age, but was still the dominant all-round athlete in Ireland. He received an invitation to compete in St. Louis from the Irish-American Athletic Club and this invitation was widely reported in Irish newspapers. This came to the notice of the AAA, who offered to pay all his expenses if he competed as a member of the United Kingdom team. As an Irish nationalist, Tom Kiely declined both those offers and said that he would compete “for Tipperary and Ireland”. He sold some of the many prizes he had won and raised the fare.
In St. Louis, Kiely won the All-round event, a precursor of the decathlon with ten events held on one day, which happened to be Independence Day in the United States (July 4th, 1904).
After a long and active life, and having raised a family of three sons and five daughters, Thomas F. Kiely died in 1951.
(Excerpts from an article by Séamus Ware, 1999)
