Uncharted with Ray Goggins review: Olympian Ciara Mageean opens up about cancer diagnosis
Michael Darragh MacAuley, Ciara Mageean and Ray Goggins pictured together during their adventure in Costa Rica. Picture: RTE.
Olympian Ciara Mageean has opened up about her cancer diagnosis on the second episode of the new series of
Teaming up with Dublin football star Michael Darragh MacAuley for a once-in-a-lifetime endurance test across Costa Rica, Mageean shared how she has been dealing with her diagnosis and opened up about her outlook on life.
Both Mageean and MacAuley joined former special-forces soldier Ray Goggins in the Costa Rican jungle, not knowing what he had in store for them.
The pair began their journey by jumping, quite literally, into the deep end – taking on a skydive, which MacAuley said was comparable to 80,000 people “ shouting at you in the dying minutes of a game”.
Once back on the ground, they met Goggins, who explained they would be covering around 250km during their journey across the width of the entire country, starting at the Pacific coast right across to the Atlantic coast.
Goggins described MacAuley, who has won eight All-Ireland medals and who won Footballer of the Year back in 2013, and Mageean, who was a European Athletics Championships gold medalist in 2024, as a tough, fit, and accomplished pair.
But this test of endurance would prove difficult for the sports stars, as they cycled, ran, trekked, rafted, and kayaked across Costa Rica.
The first day saw them cycle difficult tracks and cross a fast-flowing river with their bikes on their shoulders, before reaching camp where they bedded down in tents for the night.
Over breakfast the next morning, Mageean discussed with MacAuley and Goggins her cancer diagnosis and how she has been dealing with treatment.
“I don’t look like I have cancer,” she said.
“I was diagnosed with cancer last May. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind ever since. Initially with the diagnosis you think: ‘Oh my god am I going to die?’”
She told MacAuley and Goggins about her and her friends’ big plans for their 40th birthdays and admitted that she questions if she will be there to celebrate that milestone with them.
To camera, she spoke about how she feels it’s almost easier to be the person with the illness because going for treatment is within her control, how she copes with the post-chemo slump is on her.
“It’s my partner, Tommy, who has to see me feel sick or my parents whose little girl is ill and they can’t do anything about it,” she said, becoming emotional.
She opened up about her worry that she might not be here to experience things like growing old with Tommy or getting to visit a beautiful place twice.
A long day on foot came next for the trio, running on difficult terrain with their kits on their backs in the blistering hot climate.
At the foot of Cemetery Hill, they faced a 7km climb of hill after hill and switchback after switchback, before reaching their destination and jumping into a waterfall to celebrate their accomplishment.
“The relief from the heat off my feet, off my body. It was just bliss. It was an added little reminder that whatever challenge life's going to give us, there are little moments that you’ve got to grasp,” Mageean said.
Day three proved to be tough – a 70km bike ride with a 14km uphill push to the highest point of their journey, their end goal to reach the continental divide where water flows one way to the Pacific and the other to the Atlantic.
Over dinner that night, MacAuley opened up about his passion for helping people, particularly those who don’t get the best start in life.
“You know when these conversations are happening and all this far right stuff and people are moaning about this and that…. I’m lucky enough to be friends with people from Togo, people from Chad, people from Sierra Leone, people from Nigeria. I know what special humans they are, I know the cultural, social and economic value people are bringing and just how sound they are and how much I want them in the country,” he said.
Mageean described MacAuley as a fine example of what every Irish person should aspire to be.
The next day, weather conditions made visibility while cycling extremely difficult, as the terrain got increasingly difficult.
Reaching their destination, they bedded down for the night ahead of a day of rafting along fast-moving water, which Goggins explained would be technical due to the rain that had fallen and the power of the flowing water.
Mageean, who was initially scared as she had never rafted before, settled into the adventure and her early nerves eased after about an hour on the river.
Later that day, en route to the final overnight stay of their adventure, MacAuley spoke about the uncertainty that exists in relation to his health in later life.
His mother passed away from lung cancer when he was very young and his father developed pulmonary fibrosis and passed away back in 2012.
Acknowledging that a lung transplant is often the only option and that there is no cure for the disease, he said there is a 50% chance genetically that he will also develop the disease.
“In some ways the fear of death brings us alive and I think we need to try and grasp that as much as we can before we get caught up in all the nonsense that life usually deals us with,” he said.
They bed down ahead of the final day of their exhibition across Costa Rica, a 40km push down river to the finish in a top-heavy, flat-bottomed kayak in crocodile country ahead of them.
Spotting crocodiles in the murky waters, and taking time to take it all in from their kayaks when the hard paddling was done, the pair reflected on their week-long journey and celebrated reaching the end of their adventure at the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica with a dip in the sea.
Reflecting on the journey, Mageean said: “What I wanted to be reminded of from this journey was to be reminded of the Ciara I was before cancer. It became a thing for me… and it did. Every challenge was tough, but I knew that I could keep going because I’m not going to stop in the middle of a tough climb and say, “That’s it, I give up”. Not going to do that; that’s not the person I am. I won’t give up; I’m not going to give up.”
- continues next Wednesday at 9.35pm on RTE One.
