“I WON’T THINK about the county final until Saturday night, Sunday morning. It won’t crop up in my mind,” Pádraig O’Hora tells The 42.
“I am sure I will be training and a few conversations leading up to Sunday, but it doesn’t come in to take any of my energy or another part of my mind until a couple of hours before it.”
He knows, he knows.
This makes him unusual among his Ballina Stephenites teammates as some will pore endlessly over clips of Sunday’s opponents, Westport. Some may lose sleep over it and others will agonise over every sip and morsel to pass their lips ahead of their latest county final.
But none of that is for O’Hora. An ADHD diagnosis recently reassured him on the elements of his personality that had him pursue a varied sporting life and his way of relaxing.
Because of the hours he’s been keeping and work involved, his preparations this week hasn’t been on point.
“I looked up this morning, my average sleep is four and a half hours the last seven nights,” he says.
“I didn’t sleep well going into the semi-final at the weekend. I really didn’t eat well because I was on the road a lot. I was doing a lot of work and I had a huge caseload this week too.”
There might be some that could read lines like that and be aghast. For some playing in this county final, it might just be the defining moment of their life.
That’s not for O’Hora, but he doesn’t diminish the importance either.
“Like when you are in it, it is the most important thing in the world. And that’s fine. My experience with Mayo would have been the same. To win an All-Ireland was the be-all and end-all,” he recalls.
The reality is that you come out of that bubble every once in a while and then you realise it’s just a story we tell each other, to drive ourselves and motivate ourselves.
“And that’s fine. I wouldn’t be getting in the way of that this week. There are lads I wouldn’t express my way of doing things because it might not be the way they do.
“But I have been there. I have won and lost the big games that I thought would be life-defining. And you know what? You go home, and the kids want their dinner made. They still want to hug you, it’s undeniable that we are just playing a game to keep ourselves entertained.
“And that’s great! And I love it. And it means an awful lot more to other people.”
*****
The idea of the sensory park comes from other projects he has taken on. The turning point came when he, along with long-time collaborator Ryan Cawley, organised a disco for adults with intellectual disabilities as far back as 2019.
How does anyone even go about that?
Well, they knew the bar owner well and she allowed them to completely adapt the space. They added in a wheelchair ramp to access the dance floor. They had an army of volunteers to cater for the party-goers and make sure they were having a good time.
Some corners were given over to soft lighting and made into quiet spaces.
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They listened to the people.
“We ask people to ask us. A lot of these things are not severe at all, it is just the fear of not being looked after,” he explains.
“For example, somebody rings me and says, ‘I have a 20-year-old daughter who would love to go. But she has to have a bottle of Coke immediately after she walks in the door. She likes to listen to Taylor Swift, that brings her to a certain space and she can enjoy the night.’
“And we will do all that. You have people who come in, two people who are incredibly highly-strung autistic adults, one of them has two-to-one service and who cannot sustain any social experience at all.
But they come to our discos every couple of months when we run them. We get them in 20, 25 minutes early and the music is hopping, really loud, the lights are off and it’s dark and they can bounce around like Tigger for 25 minutes.
“They get to have their experience of what that should look like.”
Then Covid arrived. Restrictions, followed by imagination and it was in this mood that they conceived of the idea of adapting some of the Tom Ruane Park, in Ballina town and on the banks of the salmon-packed River Moy.
In the coming months, the park will re-open with an extensive sensory section included. There will be an interactive zone, musical equipment and the capacity for neuro-divergent people to regulate themselves.
O’Hora along with Cawley, Kevin Loftus, Mark Duffy, David O’Malley and Martin Devaney formed a working group. They have fought a battle with the local council to deliver this project in the heart of the town, on the banks of the Moy.
Others were trying to push them for various locations, but it was vital that this would send out a message of inclusivity, where neuro-typical and neuro-divergent could play alongside each other.
Eventually, tiring of the bureaucracy they encountered, they just said they would raise the money and get it done.
O’Hora’s role was project lead. He researched how things are done in Britain and America, but also in the Nordic countries where services are of a much higher standard.
“The bulk of the work was bringing people together so I would have had several consultation sessions with everybody and anybody, where the information was coming from,” he says.
“I would have collated all the information, brought it all together and brought to the designer and the architect. But that wouldn’t have been my vision or dream for the park, it was very much a vision that developed from the mothers, the fathers, the children themselves, adults with intellectual disabilities, people with sensory processing disorders, teachers, SEN play therapists, the experts, the non-experts, the lived experience…
“Everybody’s fingerprints are on this.”
*****
You could be forgiven for thinking that this stuff is O’Hora’s bread and butter. That this is how he earns his weekly wage.
He’s had various different roles, but right now he’s a Youth Justice Worker for Youth Work Ireland.
What that entails is working alongside An Garda Siochána in an effort to reduce and prevent crime statistics. In real terms, it’s something of a social worker role as he tackles the issues caused by drugs, alcohol and domestic violence and tries to help create pathways to education.
For some, the long burden could make a stone of the heart. But O’Hora knows these people, as he was one of them himself. His second chance came when the local Garda Junior Liason Officer Tommy Lyons offered some guidance for the young O’Hora. Direct your considerable energies into Ballina Stephenites, or see your life flush down the pan.
“I had been afforded so many opportunities. I had been very lucky,” he says.
“Those opportunities don’t land for many and if you look at autistic adults, or people with dyspraxia, people who see or feel the world slightly differently, there is a huge amount of barriers that exist and they don’t exist for us.”
With Lee Keegan after a Mayo win. Tommy Dickson / INPHO
Tommy Dickson / INPHO / INPHO
Against Lee Keegan in the 2022 county final, won by Westport. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
He soon found, whether it be in Gaelic football, martial arts, endurance training or taking part in RTÉ’s ‘Ultimate Hell Week’, his potential was limitless.
With all the commitments he has taken on as well as his family, there isn’t much room for football to elbow its way into the conversation. The likelihood of a county comeback would seem to be miles off, considering how the headspace and bandwidth of a lot of footballers is almost entirely taken up by their hobby.
“I could play it to whatever degree I want. I’m just wired . . . I have an ADHD diagnosis myself and wired this way to just stay busy,” he says.
“I love football. I really do. But the wild thing is that I am far more passionate about what I do outside of football.
“I hate being introduced as a Mayo footballer. Not that I am not proud of it. I am very proud of it. But it is not the thing in my life that I am most proud of. It’s certainly not where I want to pour my energy and resources into.
“I would be far happier pouring my time into picking up the teenagers who have been downtrodden and their lives are in a mess. I want to give them the opportunity to get away from the addiction and crisis and make a life for them.
“Like, if I saw in 10 or 15 years’ time some of these lads had a partner, a life and a family, that would mean more to me than any medal.”
*****
He has medals. But Ballina, the town and its people; that’s his medals.
“I have never lived in a city, and I never will,” he says.
“There’s 11,000 people in this town, and it is enough for me. I really care about connection and I think we are losing it. It’s one of the biggest parts of the mental health decline and it has an awful lot to say about rates of suicide, depression, a lot of the issues we have now.
“The nuclear family, the extended family, the camaraderie of friends, going out on the street to play with your friends, it is gone. Dead. That annoys me more than anything and that’s kind of where my space is at. I want to be ingrained in this town. I want to change this corner and make it as absolutely brilliant as we possibly can.”
That means getting in among each other. People of all types. When the sensory park opens, he will be proud of his own piece of the puzzle.
“I know that at some stage in the next 12 months, you and your daughter will be in the park in Ballina to see what that looks like.
“We will have a space that accommodates you, hundreds upon hundreds of families need space where mum and dad, and all their kids, no matter if they are in a wheelchair, non-verbal, it doesn’t matter. There is a place here for all of you.”
*****
On the week of a county final, the Westport manager Pat Holmes instructed his players not to agree to any media interviews.
It doesn’t cross O’Hora’s mind to even check if that’s a thing. Who knows, maybe it’s to do with their blue-blood status. Ballina Stephenites are going for their three-peat having won it the last two years.
They also have been involved in an historic savage carve-up of the Paddy Moclair Cup, market-leaders with 38 titles, with Castlebar Mitchells chasing on 31.
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With Mayo fans. James Lawlor / INPHO
James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO
You get the sense though, that he might not know those figures. He is a free bird. No cage is big enough.
His motivation is not rooted in getting up the steps, but a more sense of representing a club, a people.
“That’s what keeps me in the GAA,” he says.
“I know that with the grace of God, if we can win a county final on Sunday, there will be people, among my own family members struggling through their own battles, people that are incredibly sick, others that are losing loved ones. And we can go out and win for Ballina Stephenites.
“The journey, the games, the buzz and the atmosphere, that keeps people alive. That’s the antidote to this life sometimes and to me it’s been that way too.
“People see you as this really strong, resilient guy who has his shit together and his life together. That’s not true.
“My challenging times have been lit up by football. By having a place to go where nobody judges you. Having a bit of camaraderie and a reason to turn up, that people want you to turn up.”
And then, there’s, “the potential of being in a pub on a Monday even though I don’t drink. That’s what I am chasing. I’m not chasing a medal”.
Some years ago, he cut alcohol out of his life. Just shy of ten years. It wasn’t something that was working for him.
“I have to be completely honest. I have slipped,” he says.
“A couple of times in those years. I have had a drink in these intervening years and fortunately I have not damaged anything.
“But I have slipped, I have fallen, I have made mistakes.
“I still look at it that I am eight and a half years, nine years, whatever it is, sober. I don’t think I have to say that I am going back to square one.
“I don’t have a ten-year badge. I don’t have anything. I have done very well to stay away from alcohol for 99% of my life. That’s the reality of it.”
He adds: “The winning of this county title, for me, it’s not about the game. I came off the field against Knockmore and felt like I had lost rather than I had won. It didn’t mean anything.
“It sounds very soft, but the reality is when you have been in the very depths of it, and I have been there, I hated every fucking part of it. And football was what I lived for.”
Football has given him everything. But boy does he not give it back.
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'You realise it’s just a story we tell each other' - Pádraig O'Hora on football and life
“I WON’T THINK about the county final until Saturday night, Sunday morning. It won’t crop up in my mind,” Pádraig O’Hora tells The 42.
“I am sure I will be training and a few conversations leading up to Sunday, but it doesn’t come in to take any of my energy or another part of my mind until a couple of hours before it.”
He knows, he knows.
This makes him unusual among his Ballina Stephenites teammates as some will pore endlessly over clips of Sunday’s opponents, Westport. Some may lose sleep over it and others will agonise over every sip and morsel to pass their lips ahead of their latest county final.
But none of that is for O’Hora. An ADHD diagnosis recently reassured him on the elements of his personality that had him pursue a varied sporting life and his way of relaxing.
Because of the hours he’s been keeping and work involved, his preparations this week hasn’t been on point.
“I looked up this morning, my average sleep is four and a half hours the last seven nights,” he says.
“I didn’t sleep well going into the semi-final at the weekend. I really didn’t eat well because I was on the road a lot. I was doing a lot of work and I had a huge caseload this week too.”
There might be some that could read lines like that and be aghast. For some playing in this county final, it might just be the defining moment of their life.
That’s not for O’Hora, but he doesn’t diminish the importance either.
“Like when you are in it, it is the most important thing in the world. And that’s fine. My experience with Mayo would have been the same. To win an All-Ireland was the be-all and end-all,” he recalls.
“And that’s fine. I wouldn’t be getting in the way of that this week. There are lads I wouldn’t express my way of doing things because it might not be the way they do.
“But I have been there. I have won and lost the big games that I thought would be life-defining. And you know what? You go home, and the kids want their dinner made. They still want to hug you, it’s undeniable that we are just playing a game to keep ourselves entertained.
“And that’s great! And I love it. And it means an awful lot more to other people.”
*****
The idea of the sensory park comes from other projects he has taken on. The turning point came when he, along with long-time collaborator Ryan Cawley, organised a disco for adults with intellectual disabilities as far back as 2019.
How does anyone even go about that?
Well, they knew the bar owner well and she allowed them to completely adapt the space. They added in a wheelchair ramp to access the dance floor. They had an army of volunteers to cater for the party-goers and make sure they were having a good time.
Some corners were given over to soft lighting and made into quiet spaces.
They listened to the people.
“We ask people to ask us. A lot of these things are not severe at all, it is just the fear of not being looked after,” he explains.
“For example, somebody rings me and says, ‘I have a 20-year-old daughter who would love to go. But she has to have a bottle of Coke immediately after she walks in the door. She likes to listen to Taylor Swift, that brings her to a certain space and she can enjoy the night.’
“And we will do all that. You have people who come in, two people who are incredibly highly-strung autistic adults, one of them has two-to-one service and who cannot sustain any social experience at all.
“They get to have their experience of what that should look like.”
Then Covid arrived. Restrictions, followed by imagination and it was in this mood that they conceived of the idea of adapting some of the Tom Ruane Park, in Ballina town and on the banks of the salmon-packed River Moy.
In the coming months, the park will re-open with an extensive sensory section included. There will be an interactive zone, musical equipment and the capacity for neuro-divergent people to regulate themselves.
O’Hora along with Cawley, Kevin Loftus, Mark Duffy, David O’Malley and Martin Devaney formed a working group. They have fought a battle with the local council to deliver this project in the heart of the town, on the banks of the Moy.
Others were trying to push them for various locations, but it was vital that this would send out a message of inclusivity, where neuro-typical and neuro-divergent could play alongside each other.
Eventually, tiring of the bureaucracy they encountered, they just said they would raise the money and get it done.
O’Hora’s role was project lead. He researched how things are done in Britain and America, but also in the Nordic countries where services are of a much higher standard.
“The bulk of the work was bringing people together so I would have had several consultation sessions with everybody and anybody, where the information was coming from,” he says.
“I would have collated all the information, brought it all together and brought to the designer and the architect. But that wouldn’t have been my vision or dream for the park, it was very much a vision that developed from the mothers, the fathers, the children themselves, adults with intellectual disabilities, people with sensory processing disorders, teachers, SEN play therapists, the experts, the non-experts, the lived experience…
“Everybody’s fingerprints are on this.”
*****
You could be forgiven for thinking that this stuff is O’Hora’s bread and butter. That this is how he earns his weekly wage.
He’s had various different roles, but right now he’s a Youth Justice Worker for Youth Work Ireland.
What that entails is working alongside An Garda Siochána in an effort to reduce and prevent crime statistics. In real terms, it’s something of a social worker role as he tackles the issues caused by drugs, alcohol and domestic violence and tries to help create pathways to education.
For some, the long burden could make a stone of the heart. But O’Hora knows these people, as he was one of them himself. His second chance came when the local Garda Junior Liason Officer Tommy Lyons offered some guidance for the young O’Hora. Direct your considerable energies into Ballina Stephenites, or see your life flush down the pan.
“I had been afforded so many opportunities. I had been very lucky,” he says.
“Those opportunities don’t land for many and if you look at autistic adults, or people with dyspraxia, people who see or feel the world slightly differently, there is a huge amount of barriers that exist and they don’t exist for us.”
He soon found, whether it be in Gaelic football, martial arts, endurance training or taking part in RTÉ’s ‘Ultimate Hell Week’, his potential was limitless.
With all the commitments he has taken on as well as his family, there isn’t much room for football to elbow its way into the conversation. The likelihood of a county comeback would seem to be miles off, considering how the headspace and bandwidth of a lot of footballers is almost entirely taken up by their hobby.
“I could play it to whatever degree I want. I’m just wired . . . I have an ADHD diagnosis myself and wired this way to just stay busy,” he says.
“I love football. I really do. But the wild thing is that I am far more passionate about what I do outside of football.
“I hate being introduced as a Mayo footballer. Not that I am not proud of it. I am very proud of it. But it is not the thing in my life that I am most proud of. It’s certainly not where I want to pour my energy and resources into.
“I would be far happier pouring my time into picking up the teenagers who have been downtrodden and their lives are in a mess. I want to give them the opportunity to get away from the addiction and crisis and make a life for them.
“Like, if I saw in 10 or 15 years’ time some of these lads had a partner, a life and a family, that would mean more to me than any medal.”
*****
He has medals. But Ballina, the town and its people; that’s his medals.
“I have never lived in a city, and I never will,” he says.
“There’s 11,000 people in this town, and it is enough for me. I really care about connection and I think we are losing it. It’s one of the biggest parts of the mental health decline and it has an awful lot to say about rates of suicide, depression, a lot of the issues we have now.
“The nuclear family, the extended family, the camaraderie of friends, going out on the street to play with your friends, it is gone. Dead. That annoys me more than anything and that’s kind of where my space is at. I want to be ingrained in this town. I want to change this corner and make it as absolutely brilliant as we possibly can.”
That means getting in among each other. People of all types. When the sensory park opens, he will be proud of his own piece of the puzzle.
“I know that at some stage in the next 12 months, you and your daughter will be in the park in Ballina to see what that looks like.
“We will have a space that accommodates you, hundreds upon hundreds of families need space where mum and dad, and all their kids, no matter if they are in a wheelchair, non-verbal, it doesn’t matter. There is a place here for all of you.”
*****
On the week of a county final, the Westport manager Pat Holmes instructed his players not to agree to any media interviews.
It doesn’t cross O’Hora’s mind to even check if that’s a thing. Who knows, maybe it’s to do with their blue-blood status. Ballina Stephenites are going for their three-peat having won it the last two years.
They also have been involved in an historic savage carve-up of the Paddy Moclair Cup, market-leaders with 38 titles, with Castlebar Mitchells chasing on 31.
You get the sense though, that he might not know those figures. He is a free bird. No cage is big enough.
His motivation is not rooted in getting up the steps, but a more sense of representing a club, a people.
“That’s what keeps me in the GAA,” he says.
“I know that with the grace of God, if we can win a county final on Sunday, there will be people, among my own family members struggling through their own battles, people that are incredibly sick, others that are losing loved ones. And we can go out and win for Ballina Stephenites.
“The journey, the games, the buzz and the atmosphere, that keeps people alive. That’s the antidote to this life sometimes and to me it’s been that way too.
“People see you as this really strong, resilient guy who has his shit together and his life together. That’s not true.
“My challenging times have been lit up by football. By having a place to go where nobody judges you. Having a bit of camaraderie and a reason to turn up, that people want you to turn up.”
And then, there’s, “the potential of being in a pub on a Monday even though I don’t drink. That’s what I am chasing. I’m not chasing a medal”.
Some years ago, he cut alcohol out of his life. Just shy of ten years. It wasn’t something that was working for him.
“I have to be completely honest. I have slipped,” he says.
“But I have slipped, I have fallen, I have made mistakes.
“I still look at it that I am eight and a half years, nine years, whatever it is, sober. I don’t think I have to say that I am going back to square one.
“I don’t have a ten-year badge. I don’t have anything. I have done very well to stay away from alcohol for 99% of my life. That’s the reality of it.”
He adds: “The winning of this county title, for me, it’s not about the game. I came off the field against Knockmore and felt like I had lost rather than I had won. It didn’t mean anything.
“It sounds very soft, but the reality is when you have been in the very depths of it, and I have been there, I hated every fucking part of it. And football was what I lived for.”
Football has given him everything. But boy does he not give it back.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Ballina Stephenites GAA Interview Mayo final