Since Darragh's death, hurling takes second place to healing and the human connection 

Midleton manager Micheál Keohane on a community's efforts to channel their grief.

HEALING: Midleton manager Micheál Keohane on a community's efforts to channel their grief.  Picture: Dan Linehan

Five weeks before his tragic and untimely passing, Darragh McCarthy and his first cousin, Seán O’Meara, toed the start line at a Hyrox event in Cork City.

Hyrox, for the uninitiated and unfamiliar, is the latest fitness craze to sweep and swoon the 20 and 30-somethings of this world.

There are eight stations of torture, ranging from sled-pushing to sandbag lunges to burpee broad jumps. And in case you weren’t already exhausted, there’s a 1km run in between each station.

Sounds savagely painful, yet is sensationally popular.

Anyways, back to Darragh and Séan.

On Sunday, February 2, inside in the Marina Market, the first cousins competed in their very first Hyrox. They lined up alongside 29 other pairings in the male doubles category.

At the end of all the stations and all the 1km runs, their time of one hour and 58 seconds placed them second. Their time of one hour and 58 seconds was an elite clocking.

The plan was for the Cork City Hyrox of February 2 to be their first of many. Of course, there never was a second start line reached. Following an accident from the upper storey of student accommodation on March 6, 21-year-old Darragh passed away five days later.

Seán O’Meara, barring any positional switch from Midleton’s semi-final line-up, will start at midfield in Sunday’s county final. Darragh was a member of the same Midleton panel up until his passing on March 11.

In the weeks after they said goodbye, and in an effort to channel their grief, Darragh’s family, friends, and teammates came together to organise a Hyrox event in his memory.

Red Iron Fitness, where Darragh began his fitness journey at the age of 16, threw open their doors and held sessions to prepare the many Hyrox novices for the big day. Just one example of many from a community lending a hand in whatever way it could.

On Friday, May 23, led by his dad, Niall, and cousin Seán, 150 locals pushed sleds and skied themselves to a standstill on the ergometer as part of ‘Darragh Mac’s Hyrox’.

“It was probably the most heartbreaking and heart-warming thing that you could see, just the amount of people from the town, all of his friends and family,” said Midleton manager Micheál Keohane, himself a participant on the evening.

“That ended up being our primary focus for a couple of months. It was just trying to do something that the lads wanted to do, something that could maybe distract people for a small while.

“It was an incredible event. We had 150 people who did it and then another few hundred people at it. Josie McCarthy from Alpha Fitness in Cork helped us out, she was amazing altogether.

“Darragh and Seán had done a ridiculous time in the doubles. Two animals altogether. They did that time in Cork, so we just replicated where they’d done that.” 

Those six days in the middle of March when guards of honour were given to Darragh and Ger Fitzgerald, as Keohane has previously articulated on these pages, were “incredibly difficult”.

A 21-year-old starting out in life and in sport, a 60-year-old revered and respected for the mark and the magic he had left.

Generations young and old each lost a friend.

Keohane lined out with Ger in his last competitive fixture in black in 1999. A year later, Ger gave Keohane his first senior start.

“Ger lived a couple of doors over from me. I watched him growing up. Someone you could always rely on for a bit of advice. A brilliant man.

“Darragh then, he was one of the panel, just such a lovely young fella. Always in good form, always put everything he had into everything he did. Real perfectionist with regard to training and preparation. Really lovely kid.

“You can see how it impacts the lads so much because of the characters those two people are.

“We didn't train for a period around that time. After that, what we did was we asked primarily Darragh's friends what they wanted to do, did they want to come training or not. And if they wanted to train, we trained. And if they didn't want to, we postponed it.

“There are a lot of things that happen during sport that you realise, actually it is only a game lads, and ultimately it is not really that important like, you know.” 

No different to his Sars counterpart Johnny Crowley, Micheál found himself managing and minding people, rather than hurlers and their on-field ambitions.

“Your role definitely changes, but, I don’t know, we can't help them at all. We try, and we do whatever we can to assist in any way. But ultimately, we are just there to try and facilitate them and help them in some way, shape, or form, even if it has got nothing at all to do with hurling.

“There is a wider thing that we are trying to help them out with. The reason for getting involved is hurling, but it is really because of the connection with the players and the team. I think that is more important.”