Irish daredevils: Meet five athletes pushing boundaries and conquering the world

From extreme races to the harshest environments, Cían Byrne meets the Irish daredevils breaking records and conquering the world 

Johnny Ward, Sean Villenueva-O'Driscoll, Eoin Keith, Joan Mulloy, and Elaine Burrows Dillane share their adventures

Ireland doesn’t have the terrain of the Alps, the brutal weather of northern Canada, or the risks of the Amazon rainforest, yet we produce some wild people who are achieving serious feats at the very top of their disciplines in the outdoors. We’re a country that prioritises field and team sports, often to great success, but for some people those pursuits don’t scratch the itch and they’re left with a deep-rooted need to explore and push themselves into the unknown physically, mentally, and geographically. Despite our relatively mild weather and terrain, these brave people are reshaping the idea of what type of adventurers Ireland creates and what we can do when we’re driven to succeed.

The ultra runner

Eoin Keith crossing the line to win the Winter Spine in 2022

It takes a strong mindset to endure the morale-breaking weather in Ireland, particularly if your adventure of choice requires you to spend long, wet, miserable days outside, training for hours on end in the mountains, like ultra trail marathon runner Eoin Keith.

Having never considered himself athletic when he was a child, Keith discovered that he was a “ball of slow-twitch muscles” in his 30s when he found training for the Dublin marathon to be quite easy — he completed the race in less than three hours.

He enjoyed the long-distance event but wanted to merge that with the challenges of his other passion, mountaineering, which led him to trail running across mountain ranges. “I prefer the non-stop races, where you have to manage your sleep. You have a lot of fatigue, which makes it much more difficult and much more painful.”

Having made a name for himself among Irish trail runners by claiming the 24-hour, 48-hour, and six-day records, Keith announced himself to the wider running world by winning The Winter Spine, a 431km non-stop race along England’s Pennine Way, in 2016 and again in 2022.

Achievements like these earned him an invitation to the Barkley Marathon in Tennessee, often described as the hardest race on the planet. The event is made up of five 20-mile loops on an unmarked trail in the forest, where runners have to navigate by printed maps and collect pages from hidden books to prove they reached the checkpoints. There have been 40 editions of the race since it first started in 1986, where between 35 and 40 runners lined up each year, yet only 20 people have ever finished the event.

Keith’s career began before the advent of smartwatches, when navigation was a big part of trail running, and he feels that experience has given him something he calls mountain confidence: “Having the mountain confidence that you’ll find your way back makes a big difference.”

In 2018, he fell and broke his collarbone on the second lap, forcing him to quit, but he returned again in 2023, where he completed two full laps. The 57-year-old isn’t slowing down any time soon and next month he’ll race La Petite Trotte À Léon in the French Alps, a 300km race which he describes as a hardcore version of an ultra trail marathon, where “doing something wrong can kill you quite quickly”.

The professional climber

Sean Villenueva-O'Driscoll climbing in Patagonia 

Someone else who knows the dangers and risks of the mountains all too well is professional rock climber Seán Villanueva O’Driscoll, who, despite growing up in the flat lands of Belgium and spending large parts of his childhood in Ireland, has gone on to be one of the best free big wall climbers in the world.

This discipline sees him attached to a safety rope as he uses his hands and feet to scale enormous vertical rock faces that can take multiple days or even weeks to complete. He’s recently back from a few months in Patagonia, where he completed the first free ascent of ‘Pilar Este’ on Mount Fitz Roy.

Villanueva O’Driscoll, whose mum hails from Cork, has plenty of history with the famous mountain; in 2021, he finished what he calls the Moonwalk Traverse, the first solo traverse of the mountain and the second ever known traverse.

He was awarded a Piolet d’Or, the Oscars of mountaineering, for his efforts but the climber doesn’t do these things for the fame (he doesn’t have a phone and hasn’t posted on social media for over seven years); he does them because he’s drawn by the challenge of the unknown.

This urge took him to Pakistan this spring, where he, along with three other international climbers, has just successfully completed the first ascent of the west face of Tahu Rutum, a remote 6,651m peak in the country’s Karakoram range. Taking 13 days to climb the new route, Sean and his fellow climbers are just the second team to ever stand atop Tahu Rutum.

Challenges like these require an elite level of physical strength, unwavering mental resilience, and flawless safety knowledge but there’s something else that helps get Villanueva O’Driscoll to the summits — his tin whistle. He has become known among climbers for belting out a few trad tunes at the peak of some of the world’s most formidable mountains.

The marathon sea swimmer

A victorious Elaine Burrows Dillane

One environment that we have an abundance of is the sea and the combination of cold water and choppy waves creates swimmers who overcome difficulties every time they dive into the Irish waters.

“Any swim you do here isn’t run of the mill,” decorated marathon sea swimmer Elaine Burrows Dillane, who knows better than most, says. “There’s always a challenge attached to it.”

Based in Tralee and training in the cold waters of Tralee Bay, Burrows Dillane describes the tempera

tures as brutal yet vital for forming the toughness she needs to chase her goals. Her journey to become one of the most decorated marathon swimmers in the country gathered steam in 2021 when she became the first woman to complete the Irish Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming at 50 years old, ticking off the Fastnet Swim (21km), Galway Bay Swim (10.5km), and North Channel Swim (35km). Her efforts didn’t go unnoticed and she finished as runner-up in the World Open Water Swimming Woman of the Year Awards that year. In the following year, she added the 27km crossing of the Bristol Channel to her crossing of the English Channel (33.5km) in 2019 and another Fastnet Swim to complete the Original Triple Crown.

Burrows Dillane credits the swimming community in Kerry as playing a big role in her successes and encourages anyone who wants to get involved to reach out. “Swimmers are very eager to help anyone and to make people feel welcome.”

Now with two Triple Crowns to her name, Burrows Dillane has yet another goal in mind — the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming. Last September, she added the whopping 48.5km 20 Bridges Manhattan Island swim to her English Channel crossing, leaving her the 32.5km Catalina Channel swim next month from California to Catalina Island as the final leg.

The solo offshore sailor

Solo sailor Joan Mulloy Picture: Thomas Deregnieaux 

The ocean is something that calls to many people on this island nation. Some hear it louder than others, like Westport sailor Joan Mulloy, who can trace her seafaring family roots back to Gráinne Mhaol. Sailing has changed since her ancestor’s day but there’s no doubt she’d be proud of what Mulloy has achieved. She specialises in solo offshore sailing where she races boats by herself across long distances and often very rough seas.

“You have to be self-reliant out there,” Mulloy, who uses a vast repertoire of skills while out on the water, says. “You have to know about the boat, how to repair it, and understand the weather. It gets quite technical.”

She arrived onto the global sailing scene in 2018 when she became the first Irish woman to complete the Solitaire du Figaro, a 1,695-nautical-mile course off the coast of France.

Now living at home with her partner and their three young children, Mulloy’s main focus is on her family and mussel farm but she still has hopes of racing the Vendée Globe.

This mammoth solo race around the world is dubbed ‘the Everest of sailing’ but entering the race doesn’t come cheap.

“Sponsorship is, by far and away, the hardest part of having a campaign, way harder than the sailing itself.” This huge barrier to entry is a major deterrent to sailors like Mulloy. “I’d say, realistically, we’re talking like three or four million euro, maybe five if you want to have a good boat.”

The endurance adventurer

Johnny Ward at the South Pole

Financial worries aren’t exclusive to sailing; any amateur who is committed to outdoor adventures needs to bring in all the money they need before they escape but Co Down man Johnny Ward found a way to make money while off on his adventures. Ward is one of the most well-travelled people on the planet and he believes that anybody can follow his path from a working-class upbringing to completing the ‘Explorer’s Grand Slam’.

“Rich people dream of these things when they grow up but travelling the world isn’t one of our potential life paths when we’re young. We’re not getting on a plane to England, let alone Nepal or Antarctica.”

Adventure has been a part of Ward’s life since he was a young man who felt suffocated by the limited size of Ireland and began travelling the day after he finished university in 2006, writing a travel blog that brought in enough money to keep him going. He felt at home while constantly on the move and Ward decided he wanted to visit every country in the world, which saw him globetrot for the following 11 years until he reached Norway on St Patrick’s Day in 2017, his 197th, and final, country.

Being a completionist is part of his personality and Ward seems to have the ability to focus on a goal, define a clear to get there, and then achieve it. Since visiting every country in the world, he has been to the North Pole, South Pole, and to the top of the highest mountain on all seven continents, completing a challenge called the Explorer’s Grand Slam. Nobody has ever been to every country in the world and completed the Explorer’s Grand Slam except Ward, a feat he’s dubbed as the ‘ultimate adventurer’s grand slam’.

Ward isn’t one to sit still for too long and now he’s turned his attention to giving people the chance to complete unique endurance events. He organises the 300km Highway to Hell ultra cycle in Turkmenistan and the 160km Eye of the Sahara ultra marathon in Mauritania. “I believe doing physical challenges changes your life. If you do a multi-day painful event, it changes your life on a deep level... I feel like you love yourself 1% more for the rest of your life.”