“I WAS ALWAYS going to struggle.”
Twenty years ago this week, the talk was about how far this country had come. A member of the Travelling community was representing Ireland at the Olympics for the first time.
Not only that, but at 19 years of age he was bestowed with the honour of carrying the tricolour and leading the Irish team out at the opening ceremony in Atlanta, in the heart of America’s Deep South.
The world was watching and Ireland was sending a powerful message.
Francie Barrett never got an Olympic medal around his neck, a world title around his waist, or a life-changing cheque in his pocket. It wasn’t a rags to riches tale, more ‘five minutes of fame’.
Make no mistake, fights were lost in the ring along the way; a defeat in the Irish national championships saw Barrett miss out on the Sydney Olympics in 2000, although he disputed the qualification process at the time and turned to the professional game.
Barrett then lost three times in his 20-fight pro career, although the first defeat still grates — he is convinced he won that bout comfortably.
A couple of nasty cuts led to two more defeats via TKOs and ultimately saw him hang up his gloves 11 years ago, at the age of 28.
Barrett feels his amateur and pro careers could have fulfilled his childhood dreams and made him and his family comfortable for life. He felt he had the talent, and had put in the hard yards, but didn’t get the shot at the big time he felt he deserved.
It wasn’t just the fact that Barrett, who was the third of 11 children, and his brothers had to train in a shipping container in Galway for five years because Travellers weren’t allowed in the local boxing clubs.
He later felt his opportunities were limited on the pro circuit because of his heritage too. Sponsors and promoters looked at him differently. The former weren’t as interested as they should been, he felt, while the latter never got him the big opportunities he believed he deserved.
He knew he was a star in Ireland but was told to ply his trade on the gruelling fight circuit around London. So he took it on the chin and got to work and prepared for fights in halls and leisure centres around the English capital.
It was under former Connacht champion boxer and Galway barber Chick Gillen that Barrett made major strides, going from a junior champion to Olympic boxer in just 15 months. He fought more than 300 times as an amateur and lost on just 20 occasions. He seemed destined for big things.
No one has a right to be a world champion. But Barrett just wanted the same opportunities as everyone else – ‘I was always going to struggle.’
“The difference between my days and the way it is today is that when I did it, you didn’t have the right facilities. You just had natural, raw talent,” Barrett, 39, told The42 from London.
Barrett was the big Irish story at Atlanta 96 before the sport, particularly Michelle Smith and the furore around her victories in the pool, began. But he caught national attention again when he stepped into the ring, crushing Brazilian light-welterweight Zely Fereira dos Santos 32-7.
But that was where the fairytale ended, and he went out in the last 16 via the hands of Fethi Missaoui. The Tunisian fighter hadn’t read the script.
Missaoui went on to claim bronze in a division that was won by the dominant Cuban Hector Vincent, someone who Barrett clearly had a lot of respect for.
“If I had the facilities that they have today, if I had them back then, I probably would have come home with a silver medal and I would have given the Cuban a good fight,” Barrett added.
I didn’t fear anyone. If they had put Mike Tyson in front of me when I was younger I would have boxed him. It didn’t bother me a bit.
“Once I had a fight, I didn’t care who I boxed. And I didn’t really give a shit what weight he was either. I used to box from light-welterweights up to middleweight.
“I only had an aul’ container there in Galway. We didn’t have a boxing club so I used to train in the container. My brother used to hold the pads for me and he’s not a trainer. It was just natural, raw talent.”
Carrying the flag in Atlanta will stay with Barrett forever, although he’s baffled as to where the 20 years have gone.
“I was just excited to be boxing at the Games to be honest. It’s such a big occasion.
“It was brilliant and to be asked to carry the flag, that was even better again. It was a brilliant experience.
“I look back at it now, it’s 20 years, just gone. It was like it was yesterday. You don’t find the time going by.”
It was a bit of a whirlwind from there. When Barrett returned to Galway he was paraded around the city on an open-top bus as a hometown hero. But only weeks later he was forced to move to London with his fiancée Kathleen due to issues with the halting site in Galway.
It was a time in his life that was captured excellently in Liam McGrath’s 1999 documentary ‘Southpaw – The Francis Barrett Story’, a production that was highly acclaimed and screened at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.
Professional
He moved to the professional game in 2000 as he didn’t qualify for the Sydney Games. And while his pro career lasted five years and 20 fights — 19 in London and one in Dublin (his penultimate bout) — Barrett’s memories of it are mixed.
He signed with promoter Frank Warren and felt enough wasn’t made of his standing in Ireland after the exposure he got in Atlanta. He knew he could sell fights at home. His story was known nationwide and had been reinforced in the public’s mind by the success of ‘Southpaw’.
“Pro boxing was going well for me, it was going very well for me. But when I went with Frank Warren, I said to Frank Warren, ‘Bring me back to Ireland and I’ll show you how popular I am’. But he didn’t do it.”
After that, he felt things didn’t go his way.
“I had a fight a long time ago with a guy named Ted Bami and I know very well I bet Ted Bami five rounds out of six, but he got the decision.
“Then I ended up losing two fights because of bad cuts. I got a bad cut over the eye, I had to go to get it stitched in three or four places.
“In my last fight I got a very, very bad cut over the eye again and that was it, I had to call it a day. I was only 28 at the time.”
And it hurt, more than a punch ever could.
It was the sport that I loved, and over what was happening in life in the line of being mistreated and not being given the right facilities, I was rarely getting sponsorship.
“You were always going to struggle.
“You’d do anything to get ready for fights but you were always fighting a battle, to get the big opportunities, to get big title fights.
“You were always getting put on these small shows as a pro and eventually I said enough is enough.
“And it was like anything, when I walk away from something, that’s it, I won’t go back.”
Home
These days Barrett still calls Galway home but his time remains split between the Connacht city and the English capital, where his four children — two boys and two girls — live.
Both boys have demonstrated a talent for boxing but his eldest, Frankie, has hung up the gloves already. “He had the talent but didn’t have the hunger, as they say.”
“Sean (13) is only still a novice. He’s only had 10 or 15 fights but he’s coming along, he’s coming along good.
“I’ve got a couple of nephews there that are very good, they’ve won a couple of Irish titles. Edward Barrett, Danny Barrett and then there is Frankie O’Donovan… he’s a good little fighter.
“Danny and Edward box from Ireland and from London because they’re regulars over here. Because their parents are Irish, they enter the Irish championships when they’re on.”
Blood
He may be retired 11 years but you get the impression Barrett still sees himself as a boxer. It may sound romantic, but it’s in his blood. He briefly dabbled in promoting but got burnt badly, and consequently was put off it for life.
“I did [try promoting] but it was a waste to be honest, I thought Galway would have been a good area to do it but I lost out fairly big on that,” Barrett explained.
But you go and you lick your wounds and you start again.
He helps out with Hooks ABC in London and Olympic Boxing Club in Galway and that’s his limit. Training fighters doesn’t appeal like it once did. He loves the simplicity of the sport inside the ring, not the complexity outside of it.
“You’re in a sport that you love but you end up getting kind of turned away from it. But then when I left it, I loved it again, if you get me?”
These days Barrett keeps himself busy with gardening work in England while he helps with horses when he goes home to Galway.
Rio
He still has great affection for Ireland and is desperate to see the nation’s boxers succeed in Rio. He’s expecting it too.
“It’s good for the young lads now today and I hope Ireland bring back a couple of medals, please God.
“That [Mick] Conlan fella from Belfast, he’s going to win an Olympic gold medal. There’s another guy there, Joe Ward. Joe Ward I think will do very well.”
Barrett carved the path for the likes of Ward and John Joe Nevin to follow, Nevin surpassing Barrett’s achievements with a silver in London four years ago and having since built up a 7-0 record in the pro game.
Fury
One pro who has caused quite some consternation, particularly due to his comments on a number of sensitive issues, is world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. He has become as famous for his mouth as he has for his fists.
Fury is proud of his Irish Traveller heritage and while Barrett admits the 6’9″ fighter doesn’t help himself at times, he feels he is not treated fairly because of his background.
“Tyson Fury is coming across saying that being a Traveller, he’s not getting the right publicity, and that is true. I know that for definite. But he does too much acting about and it turns people away from him.
I know people talk about the negativity but he does a lot of that himself. He comes across as being the nasty guy and does all this fool-acting about.
“He’s a big guy, a good fighter but he has a childish brain.”
As for his ability in the ring, Barrett has no doubt Fury is the heavyweight king right now, despite talk that he is merely warming fellow Brit Anthony Joshua’s throne.
The world may have been stunned when the undefeated Fury (26-0) overcame Wladimir Klitschko last November, but Barrett certainly wasn’t.
“He beat the best that’s out there. All you hear about over here is Anthony Joshua this, and Anthony Joshua that.
“I know Tyson Fury, he’s a friend of mine. Now if Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua box I’d put money on Tyson Fury to beat Anthony Joshua, I think he’d beat Anthony Joshua all day long.
“But if Tyson Fury were to beat Anthony Joshua, there’d be another excuse made up.
“Anthony Joshua is tailor-made for Tyson Fury. Anthony Joshua is a very good fighter, he’s a very good athlete. But Anthony Joshua is much the same physique as Frank Bruno; he’s musclebound. So when he’s in a hard fight, how is he going to cope? So far he has beaten fellas that he’s expected to beat.
“The one I’d be looking out for is David Haye. He’s a good fighter him, he’s a very good fighter.”
A brief chat about the best heavyweight boxers in the world and Barrett’s excitement is obvious — boxing, even just talking about it, gets his blood flowing.
Take out the politics, contested decisions and the big-money dreams and it’s a contest in its purest form. That’s the simplicity that Barrett adores, his mind sparked to life in the ring, he loved to think on his feet.
The way he sees it, it was people outside the ring who let him down. The pads, the smell of the canvas, and even the man in the opposite corner never did.
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