Last word fighting the good fight for all ages

Seamus Enright

While ‘The Clones Cyclone’ Barry McGuigan continues to grab the headlines with his protégé Carl Frampton retaining the IBF Super Bantamweight title last month, there are those within the McGuigan family fighting to secure an altogether very different kind of legacy.
Mother-of-four Catherine, 11-years younger than her better known brother, is the regional project manager of the Age Friendly Programme in Ireland, a role she sees as a catalyst for change, not just now, but for generations to come.
“It was a great 54th birthday present for Barry. Karl was in phenomenal condition and the atmosphere was electric,” Catherine recalls sitting ringside recently at a packed Odyssey Arena to watch the Belfast-born Frampton stop Chris Avalos in five rounds on home turf.
When Barry started his career inside the ring, Catherine describes herself as “only knee high” to her bigger brother. She was still old enough to witness his successes in the ring - at the Commonwealth and Summer Olympics in ‘78 and ‘80, and his illustrious eight-year pro-boxing career (1981-89- 32W 28KO 3L) during which he became WBA Featherweight Champion beating Eusebio Pedroza. Understandably, boxing has been a major part of not just McGuigan family life but also the Clones area. It engendered a real sense of community. It’s a sense of closeness Catherine hopes will be rekindled, especially with her brother angling for more major title bouts to be screened live on terrestrial television and accessible to all.
“I’ve heard more stories of people who watched the Frampton fight on ITV at home, and invited people around to see it too. When that’s happening, people realise again what a great sport boxing is, how disciplined it is, how challenging it is, but ultimately how rewarding it is. I feel what could be one of Barry’s greatest achievements is getting boxing back on the box, and back into people’s homes.”
The second youngest of eight siblings, Catherine’s mother ran the family shop while her father Patrick found fame as a singer, coming to national prominence when finishing fourth for Ireland at the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest (as Pat McGeegan) with the song ‘Chance of a Lifetime’.
“Our father was this adorable character, full of songs and stories. He had dancing blue eyes and we had a great childhood with him,” says Catherine, as she describes an unorthodox homeplace “always lively, full of fun” where you could as easily run into the local postman making tea in the kitchen as one of many musicians her father would bring home for “jam sessions.”
Patrick McGuigan died in 1987, aged 52-years-old. It was a difficult time for the family.
Pat as he was known used to sing ‘Danny Boy’ before many of his son’s bouts, a fact that inspired the Hacienda Brothers’ song ‘If Daddy Don’t Sing Danny Boy’. Pat’s death in part prompted Barry’s initial retirement in ‘87.
Catherine takes heart in the knowledge that the person they “all looked up to” lived a full life in his 52 years. “He travelled the world and made a lot of friends. It’s testament to him that, when he did die, so many people came to the house to sympathise. We were deprived of him very young but he had a very positive impact on all of us.”

Journalism
Educated at St Tiarnach’s, then a secondary school in the town, it was partly because her father’s active encouragement that Catherine was guided towards her initial career choice, as a journalist.
Earning one of just 25 places to study at Coláiste Dhúlaigh College of Further Education (CDCFE) in Coolock, when she graduated, Catherine landed a job with ‘Anois’, the Irish-language weekly newspaper, published in Dublin by Gael Linn, up until June 1996.
“We didn’t have computers in those days, and we used rulers to lay things out, so I slipped in there as the publishing editor’s assistant.”
However, having also sampled first-hand the intrusion of the media, following her father and her brother throughout their careers, Catherine felt a vocation in the mould of BBC chief news correspondent Kate Adie, entering crisis situations in war torn countries, would never suit her.
“I did a little bit of work with Gerry Callan in The Star newspaper also, but I always saw myself as more of a writer than a journalist. That won’t make sense to many people, but you can be a crusader or you can be a reporter. Journalism just wasn’t for me.
“So I diversified, and channelled that creativity into other things, like marketing, business development, and now in policy and implementation, working as a catalyst for change.”
Despite leaving a career in writing behind, Catherine refuses to rule out picking up a pen once more and producing something on paper in the future.
“Doesn’t everyone?,” Catherine laughs, when asked whether she has book inside her waiting to get out.
Not quite a sore point, but it’s clear the subject plays on her mind as Catherine recalls speaking to friend and mentor Redhills’ writer Shane Connaughton, who she first met when working as an extra on the set of 1995 film ‘The Run of the Country’, directed by Peter Yates and filmed in Clones.
“I hadn’t seen him in about 20 years when I met him recently and he said to me, ‘Have you ever written that book?’ So I sat down and talked to him about a few ideas.
“I’ve always had the aspiration to write a book. They say there’s a book in everybody. There is a story there in me, I just don’t know what it is yet.”

Myth
If it’s inspiration Catherine is searching for, she needs to look no further than the people she engages with on a daily basis through her Age Friendly Ireland role.
“I do so much interesting work, and I work with so many interesting people, the stories and anecdotes I come across each and every day, it’s incredible.”
Age Friendly Ireland manages the now five-year-old national ‘Age Friendly Cities and Counties’ programme which aims to recognise the valuable role older people play in shaping their communities. In Cavan, the process began back in 2010, under the guidance of former county manager Jack Keyes who worked closely with the area manager of the HSE, Garda chief superintendent and CEO of the Education and Training Board in addressing issues affecting older people. Underpinned by the input of a vibrant local Older People’s Forum, the county town’s efforts were justly rewarded in 2013 when it won a prestigious European tourism award for its progressive work on making itself accessible to visitors.
Catherine is determined to dispel the myth that Age Friendly is simply for older people.
“When you design for an older person, you’re designing for everybody - for mothers with buggies and young children, people with disabilities. Age Friendly is not just about projects for older people. Age Friendly is for everyone, looking at how to build a sustainable environment to cater for everybody,” explains Catherine.
One of the biggest successes of the programme to date she believes, is the widening realisation amongst policy makers that older people are willing and able to contribute to effecting genuine and meaningful change.
“They don’t come in and say I want a new pavement outside my house, or a bus stop at the end of the street. They were coming up with pragmatic solutions to issues, usable at a strategic level and suitable to all. The willingness too of the authorities, agencies across the public, private and NGO sector, has also been enormously humbling.”
Catherine refers to the 2008/09 World Health Organisation framework which outlined the rapid changes demographic, whereby in an Irish context, the proportion of people aged 65 years or older is projected to increase from 13% of the overall population to 26% by 2036.
“We’re facing a huge challenge as a society. People are living longer. So you can understand the challenges that will present in terms of pensions, or healthcare. If we’re having difficulties at the minute coping with the population, you can imagine what it’s going to be like into the future.
The WHO said we need to be planning now, and probably should have [already been planning]. The term they use is bounty, not burden. The key to this is that we recognise older people as huge contributors to society. Listen to them now and plan for the future,” she says.