A 75-year-old walker who set out from Patrick Kavanagh's home place in Inniskeen on Monday is due to finish his journey in Dublin on Friday afternoon, retracing on foot the road the poet took to the capital in 1931.
Frank Greally, the founder of Irish Runner magazine, left the door of the Kavanagh house in Inniskeen on 12 October and has been covering more than 20 kilometres a day on the roughly 100km route, Northern Sound reported on Thursday. He began with a visit to St Daigh's National School in the south Monaghan village, where he led the pupils on a school run.
Why Inniskeen
Mr Greally told Northern Sound that his love of Kavanagh's writing went back to a primary school teacher. "In 1931 he famously walked from Inniskeen to Dublin and it made sense for me to go back to where it all started out for him. I actually started out from the door of his house," he said.
Writing in the Irish Times on Thursday, Frank McNally noted that Kavanagh took three days to cover the 60 miles or so, wearing hobnail boots made by his father, a cobbler. Mr Greally is taking it more slowly, partly because of the stops he is making at schools along the way, and he has had company on the road, including Inniskeen historian Thomas Ruddy.
The Daily Mile message
At each school, Mr Greally is promoting the Daily Mile, a programme backed by Athletics Ireland that encourages children to get outside and run, walk or jog for at least 15 minutes. The Patrick Kavanagh Centre in Inniskeen, which listed the walk, said the route takes in schools in Ardee, Slane and Ashbourne, and that he is also talking to children about friendship, kindness and gratitude.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1's Oliver Callan show on the first day, he said he tells children that if they keep up regular exercise through their lives, they will still be able to walk from Inniskeen to Dublin when they reach his age.
Asked by Northern Sound whether the walk was getting hard, he admitted the road into Ashbourne was a test: "There's a big long straight coming into Ashbourne and I said 'by God the legs are feeling it now'." He also told the Irish Times that the roads felt far more dangerous for walkers than they used to, with traffic that seemed to have speeded up even in the past few years.
The route and the finish
According to the itinerary published by the Patrick Kavanagh Centre, the walk started at Mucker, Inniskeen, on Monday, with legs from Ardee on Tuesday, Slane on Wednesday and Ashbourne on Thursday, each starting at 11am. Friday's final stage runs from Finglas to the seated Kavanagh statue on the Grand Canal near Baggot Street Bridge, with arrival expected at about 2pm.
It is the second long walk of the year for Mr Greally, who walked from the Coombe Hospital in Dublin, where he was born, to his home town of Ballyhaunis in Co Mayo in June to mark his 75th birthday. He calls these his "Gratitude Walks".
The walk also ties in with his annual Remembrance Run, a 5km event in the Phoenix Park on 8 November that he founded in memory of the writer Con Houlihan, another great admirer of Kavanagh. This year marks the event's 15th anniversary.
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