IRISH TRAVEL & CULTURE GUIDE
SUMMER 2013
June 2013
BELIEVE IN BOSTON: REFLECTIONS ON THE BOSTON MARATHON
To prepare for the Boston marathon you must approach it as a pilgrimage, a personal journey into your interior, a promise you make to your self, that you will triumph, through sheer endurance and tenacity, and you will take your rightful place alongside thousands of others who ran this course in their time, across three centuries.
You think about Boston so much that it becomes dreamlike. You could be training in the mountains of Kenya, rare air, scorched sun, bristled shrubs, or galloping down the back roads of Ireland, moss green fields, steady drizzle and cows staring into the moment you pass by. You could be running hard down the California coast, wheezing up the hills of Pittsburgh, chasing exhaust fumes across New York’s bridges. No matter how weary you become, you imagine the finish line in Boston and that keeps you going.
The race has been an inspiration from the very beginning. In Athens, Greece in 1896, Boston Athletic Association officials witnessed a great human drama in sports, the world’s very first marathon. Inspired by the story of Pheidippides and the Battle of Marathon, the band of runners raced through the Greek countryside for over two hours as the crowd waited anxiously in the stadium. They heard an Australian was in the lead, then an American, Boston’s own Arthur Blake. But suddenly an astonished, exhilarant roar went up in the stands as Greece’s own Spyridon Louis entered the stadium first, having passed the exhausted frontrunners, the crowd going berserk, yelling “Hellene, Hellene!” as he crossed the finish line.
The Boston men knew at once they had to stage such a marathon in their beloved City on a Hill, in their Athens of America. The following April, 1897, they launched the Boston Marathon, and fifteen runners showed up. Sprinter Thomas Burke of Boston’s West End, who had won the 100 and 400 meter races in Athens, was the official race starter. He drew a line in the dirt with his foot, shouted Go, and the runners took off, watched by curious bystanders. Bicyclists rode alongside the runners, offering food, water and advice. John McDermott, a twenty-two year old lithographer from New York, won the race. Some say he was from Ireland, others thought he came from the Maritimes. He ran again in 1898, finishing fourth, and then disappeared from the public record.
There has always been an Irish contingent at this marathon – this is Boston after all. Just as Kenyans and Ethiopians dominate the marathon today, Irish-Americans ruled the race in the early years, with winners like Jack Caffery, John Lorden, Tim Ford, Michael Ryan, James Duffy and James Henigan.
“Bricklayer Bill” Kennedy, who ran the Boston Marathon 28 times, won the race in 1917. This year was significant, says his descendant, author Patrick Kennedy, because it occurred just two weeks after the Unites States entered World War I, and Boston Harbor was on alert. “There were already reports of Boston fishing boats being sunk by German subs,” Kennedy says. “Some suggested cancelling the marathon, but others pointed to the race’s military roots as well as the fact that it was held on Patriots Day.” The race took place, a firm retort to fear, and Kennedy, wearing a bandana on his head with an American flag stitched on the side, became a hero that day.
The late John A. Kelley was the quintessential Boston Marathon runner. Born in 1907, he ran his first marathons in 1928 and 1932 but didn’t finish either race. Then, in a remarkable burst of endurance and tenacity, Kelley finished every single Boston Marathon from 1933 to 1992, fifty-nine years in a row! Johnny won the race twice, placed second 7 times, and finished in the top ten 18 times.
Today the Boston Marathon is international in scope, embodying all ethnic and national boundaries. And yet it remains an American original, distinct in all its contradictions: supersized but intimate, brash and orderly, patriotic yet apolitical, cosmopolitan and local, a race for professionals and amateurs alike. Prize money goes to elite runners, while thousands of runners collect millions for charity. Certain runners eye the elusive two hour milestone, others struggle to break five hours. Everyone dreams a similar dream, to reach the finish line, to be part of a grand tradition, of something significant.
And that is how it was on April 15, 2013 at the 117th Boston Marathon. 27,000 people registered to run the race, and half a million spectators lined the 26.2 mile route. Police officers, firemen and ambulance workers lined the route, directing traffic and keeping order. Thousands of volunteers in blue and yellow tee-shirts gave directions, answered questions, kept the crowd off the course, and encouraged worn out runners.
The elite runners started early, the women leaving at 9:32 am, the men at 10 am, followed by the rest of the pack at 10:40, a virtual sea of humanity, from all nations, walks of life, religious beliefs, stages of fitness. Some were chasing victory, some running for a charity, all of them on their personal journeys, moving in unison toward the finish line. And that’s where this year’s Boston Marathon story starts, at the finish line. Who could have foreseen the reckless act of evil on a day when children are on vacation, eating hot dogs and ice cream? Thousands of people stood at the finish line, awaiting that last batch of runners chasing down their dreams, seeing that final stretch of Boylston Street, as they headed toward the roar of an enraptured crowd in love with Boston, at this very moment in time when Boston is at its finest.
The news from the finish line comes in short bursts, and there is early confusion about whether the explosion was accidental or deliberate. News comes over the wire of an explosion at the John F. Kennedy Library three miles away, which turned out to be a small electrical fire, but for a moment the thought of 9/11 enters your mind.
Then the heartbreak began to emerge in slow, painful motion. The Richard family of Dorchester was at the finish line. Eight year old Martin Richard was killed, his mother and father were wounded by shrapnel, his seven year old sister Jane, an Irish step dancer at the Clifden Irish Dance Academy in Milton, lost her left leg. Twenty-nine year old Krystle Campbell died instantly, waiting for her boyfriend to finish. “Along with her million dollar smile came head-to-toe freckles and gorgeous bright red hair, connecting her Irish roots and kid-like manor,” wrote her employer. Lu Lingzi, a 23 year old Chinese graduate student at Boston University died at the finish line. She played the piano and loved dogs. At the memorial service at BU her friends gathered around Lu’s parents, who traveled from China to Boston to retrieve their only child and bring her home.
Thursday night after the marathon, 26 year old Sean Collier, a policeman at MIT, was murdered sitting in his police car on campus. All he wanted to do in life was to be a cop, his brother said at Sean’s memorial, which was attended by Vice President Joe Biden, and by police officers from around the world, including Ireland.
Later that night 33 year old policeman Richard Donohoe was caught in a gunfight and a bullet ripped through his leg, severing his femoral artery. He lost so much blood that he went into cardiac arrest, but firefighters stemmed the bleeding and rushed him to Mt. Auburn Hospital, where emergency doctors and nurses saved his life. Donohoe’s greatgreat grandfather, Lawrence Brignolia, won the Boston Marathon in 1899.
Boston Strong
In Copley Square a make-shift memorial has sprung up in the tiny park sandwiched between the Boston Public Library and Trinity Church, not far from the finish line, and near the medical tent that saved so many of the injured from dying. Bouquets of flowers and stuffed animals, rosary beads and candles, sports shirts and hats from the Celtics, Bruins, Red Sox and Patriots -- all placed carefully, with reverence, in silence. Written on message boards are traces of love, support and resolve from the world over, from Texas to Tibet, California to Japan.
To prepare for the 118th running of the Boston marathon in 2014, you must approach it as a pilgrimage, a personal journey into your interior, a promise you make to your self, and to each other, that courage always trumps fear, that good triumphs over evil and that Boston will endure, stronger than ever, the race, and the city. Boston is strong.
- By Michael Quinlin
(A version of this article appeared in Irish America Magazine)