How Eamon Harvey went from local trainer to a constant positive in Irish athletics

He might be 16 years out of the Olympic circle, but Eamon Harvey’s passion for sport is far from shrinking.  

It’s an area that he has honed his entire adult life. He has seen the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. It’s a craft that can never be perfected - that’s perhaps what he loves about it.  

The memory is far from fading too. Sit down and question the former Team Ireland coach on any athlete that he has had the privilege of coaching, what their record is, what they achieved. There was no checking the phone for reminders or marking through a book of statistics. It simply rolled off the tongue, to the exact second.   

Sport has taken him to places that many from his area could almost only dream of, from four Olympic Games (1996-’08) to countless World and European Championships. The Donegal man was always grateful to experience, firsthand, sporting moments that made Irish hearts all but pound out of their ribcages.  

Even from his earliest days at school, sport and the Irish Olympic story were always a constant.  

“I remember very well sitting in a small classroom out in Drimarone, subsequent to when Ronnie Delaney won the gold in 1956, and on the back wall there was a photograph up on the back wall of the classroom of Delaney running through the line with his two arms in the air. That would’ve been my first memory of the Olympics,” Harvey told Donegal Live.  

After graduating in Physical Education from Manchester University, Harvey took up a teaching position at the then Donegal Town Vocational School where he remained as the ever-present master of sport until he retired in 2006, before going to work on a professional basis with Athletics Ireland in the areas of Coach Education and Development, at a time when the association went professional.  

Ask the students under his watchful eye during that 30-year period, there wasn’t much he didn’t do to improve the sporting life in Donegal Town or county at that time.   

“I suppose I was involved in anything I felt I could help out with,” he admitted. “I was secretary of the Four Masters for a lot of years and trained the team too for a while. At county level, I coached the minor team that got to an All-Ireland semi-final in 1991, and I also had great interest in basketball for a long time and coached a number of teams too.”  

His athletics story grew as the talent in the local area grew. He starting coaching the Irish juvenile teams for a number of years before he moved up as Team Manager for the Olympics and Paralympics in Atlanta. 

“I suppose I really got involved in athletics at national level in the late 70s and early 80s when a lot of local athletes started to shine,” Harvey said. “I remember a local man called David Wilson who went off on a scholarship and is now living in Chicago, and I would say, apart from Kelly McGrory, he would’ve been the most talented to come through our area.  

“I remember David finished seventh at the European Championship and also went to two World Cross Country Championships, it was unfortunate that he never came back from America but that’s the way it goes, that happens sometimes in sport.  

“Coming into the Olympic scene in the 90s would’ve happened very naturally, and it was a great time considering we had two top stars in Sonia O’Sullivan and Catherina McKiernan.   

“But at that time, I was looking after the international junior teams, where we would meet for a few days when all the athletes would come home and we would train during Christmas or Easter holidays, so I was familiar with the whole setup. Then, sometime in the 90s, I was asked to come in with the Olympic team that went to Atlanta in 1996.”  

It was the Summer of great hope until it wasn’t. Disappointment on the track for hero O’Sullivan following an illness was even further overshadowed by the load rumours and questions in the pool over the astonishing performance of Michelle Smith which saw the Irish woman achieve three gold medals and one bronze.  

It created a media circus that many to this day care to forget about, but for Harvey, serving as a team coach had a more personal boost from the Games in Atlanta, when Donegal’s own Bridie Lynch became Ireland’s first Paralympian to win gold.  

A moment that he still recalls with pride to this day.  

“I actually stayed in the US for three months in total because I was also coaching the Paralympics team where I worked with Bridie Lynch who became the first Paralympian, and partially sighted athlete, to win a gold medal for Ireland. I can still remember to this day, her winning the gold by 20cm . . . I’ll never forget it,” the Donegal man said.  

“I was coaching Bridie from 1992, so four years at that stage. She would come to Donegal Town twice a week, so it was all building to this moment. She went into the lead on her second last throw, but then she fouled on her last attempt, nobody went further than her, and she ended up winning the gold. It was unreal.”  

He coached many other notable and successful athletes in that time, including Catherine Walsh, Conal McNamara, and Jason Smyth, to name a few, but perhaps, none came close to the legend of Sonia O’Sullivan.  

“I was involved with Sonia as a national coach for four years prior to Atlanta. The big day with Sonia had to be at the World Championships in Gothenburg in 1995 when she won her first gold on the track because we had real belief that we were going to Atlanta and win something. Unfortunately, everything went belly up health wise which was a real shame,” he said.  

“That whole scenario with Sonia at that time, I found it really sad, because I knew Sonia from when she was 16 years old, we first met in Killenaule in Tipperary when she won the National title in Cross Country.  

“Sonia was always very reserved but really driven and hardworking, and it was at that time in Atlanta in ’96, there was a lot of pressure on her because she was the star that was winning everything at that point, thankfully she bounced back and got a silver in Sydney in 2000 . . . I would say as a team coach, she would’ve been the best.”  

Harvey would be present in Sydney, while also attending the Summer Games in Athens and Beijing before eventually calling it a day. Each event presented its own challenges, they could be stressful and hard work, but something he always enjoyed.  

“I think out of the four Olympics I’ve gone to, I enjoyed Sydney the most from a professional point of view. It was really well organised and the temperature was nice. For example, in Atlanta, because it was so hot, we had to train at 5am and all the middle-distance races would be run at midnight because of the heat which wasn’t ideal,” he admitted.  

“I was really fortunate to go to World Championship events everywhere, from South Africa to Antwerp, as a spectator to a coach. By far the most enjoyable one I was at was as a spectator at the Moscow Olympics in 1980 . . . mainly because you could get a ticket for about £10.  

“I can still remember Eamon Coughlan coming up the back straight and going from second to third place. He held that position with about 50 metres to go, and he ended up in fourth position which was really unfortunate.”  

It’s almost been two decades now since his last Olympic Games, his memories are everlasting and he still serves on the High-Performance Committee, but his greatest pride is seeing Donegal Town’s Kelly McGrory donning the green colours of Team Ireland.  

Harvey has seen McGrory develop from a little acorn to a giant oak in the national games especially when her road was not always straightforward.  

“I think to say that you have someone from your local area who you’ve known since they were no age, and they’re now representing Ireland in Paris, it’s really special,” the Donegal coach said about McGrory.  

“I don’t think we knew back then that Kelly would go on and achieve what she has achieved. It’s been a rocky road for her coming back from a few injuries, even when she went to DCU, but in the last few years, she’s remained injury-free and has really blossomed as an athlete.  

“There’s a lot of cliches about making it in sport, I’ve noticed the best athletes, yes, they have everything working from the neck down, but more importantly, everything has to be working from the neck up.”  

With Ireland’s athletic extraordinaires ready to take centre stage in Paris, Harvey feels now might be the time for Team Ireland to step out from the shadows and compete with the best in the world as some of Ireland’s greatest athletes prepare for the event of a lifetime.  

“Athletics is really exciting in Ireland at the minute, probably more now than ever. I think the big difference about these athletes now is that they’re not just happy to be here and make up the numbers, they’re here to compete with the best and believe they can beat the best,” he said.  

“There was always that attitude amongst the Irish boxers, where they always went in with a real belief and that’s why they were successful, and I think the rest of the athletes have that belief now too.”  

Harvey will be watching the games from his home in Donegal but the passion will be flowing from him as much now as it did all those years ago. He believes this could be a successful time for Irish athletes – he's talking from experience.