"The Rosscarbery Steam Engine"

440yards Champion, Ireland, 1885-1888
440yards Champion, USA, 1888

Secretary Carbery Rangers GAA club, 1887.


Newspaper article, taken from The Cork Independent,
17 May 2012.

Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh unveiled a new headstone for TJ O'Mahony aka ‘The Rosscarbery Steam Engine' at Glasnevin ceremony last weekend.

O'Mahony defeated America's finest athletes at New York's Madison Square Garden and other venues in the USA, and now Timothy Jerome O'Mahony, aka ‘The Rosscarbery Steam Engine', is to receive final official national recognition with a new headstone - 98 years after the Cork runner's death in Smithfield, Dublin.

Legendary sports commentator Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh performed the unveiling ceremony and said: "The placing of this headstone on TJ O'Mahony's grave in Glasnevin represents the culmination of a wonderful series of recent events to mark the runner's achievements. I am delighted to say there have been an exceptional number of heartwarming goodwill gestures and financial contributions coming into play to make this day happen for someone who was a proud Irish man and a remarkable champion athlete of the pre-modern Olympic era."

At a time when the GAA was actively involved in track and field sports, TJ O'Mahony was GAA Irish Champion in the quarter-mile (400 metres) in 1885, 1887 and 1888 and Irish Amateur Athletics Association (IAAA) champion in 1886, before grabbing all the positive headlines as part of the GAA's ‘Gaelic Invasion' tour of the USA in 1888, when some of the country's finest hurlers and track and field athletes were dispatched to promote Gaelic sports in America.

Last October, O'Mahony was honoured with a plaque in the centre of his home town of Rosscarbery in west Cork and the holding of the first annual Rosscarbery Steam Engine 5km family ‘fun' run.

In December 2011, the GAA Museum in Croke Park was presented with the only known photograph of the man himself, which had been found with fortuitiously good timing in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, where O'Mahony lived for a time.

The son of a shopkeeper, Timothy Jerome O'Mahony was born at home in Rosscarbery town, west Cork, in 1864 and trained in all weathers in a local field (even after school), with no coaching, his powerful and distinctive rhythmic style of running earning him the moniker ‘The Rosscarbery Steam Engine'. He was also the first Secretary of the local Carbery Rangers GAA club in 1887.

He died at Hendrick Lane, Smithfield, Dublin in 1914, aged 50, of cardiac failure.