Next generation now determining route of Dublin Marathon

Neil Kennedy and Seán Ó Riain grew up immersed with the Dublin marathon.

A constant in their respective childhoods was the build-up to the October bank holiday weekend, hectic periods for their families, but in particular their fathers.

Billy Kennedy ran the inaugural Dublin marathon in 1980 before joining the organising committee and effectively becoming the operational director. Liam Ó Riain is a former race director and a member of the original organising committee.

Their sons now carry the baton.

Last year Seán was appointed the first full-time chief executive of the Irish Life Dublin Marathon, while Neil is the first full-time technical director.

Continuing tradition, the four men will be at the start line as around 20,000 runners get ready to set off from Merrion Square, with handshakes all round after the participants depart.

"Seán has the role my dad had, and I have the job that Liam's dad had. That's more than a hundred years' experience at the start line," Neil tells RTÉ Sport.

Neil’s credentials for the role have been well earned over time; there were few jobs associated with the event he hasn't first-hand experience of. He's manned water stations, worked at the expos, packed goody bags and even cycled with the elites when he was 12.

"It was just part of my life," he says.

When he joined in an official capacity in 2009 - Kennedy among the 10 volunteers on the marathon committee - it was the start of a period of rapid growth.

That year, just over 10,000 runners completed the course, double the number of 10 years previously. A decade later a record 22,500 entries were sold, though with no-shows and DNF’s, just short of 18,000 crossed the finish line.

"I don’t think we realised the size, scale and impact of the event at the time."

Kennedy’s marathon schedule followed a clear routine. Take a couple of weeks off from his job with Guinness in October and, as part of a dedicated group, ensure the ship stayed afloat amid increasing pressures. The numbers were only going one way, and a background in Health and Safety ensured he was acutely aware of the growing demands on the committee's time.

"The city, and how it governs events, was changing, and we had to develop with that. For the standard of the event we wanted to put on for both the city and participants, it simply wasn't sustainable.

"It was a reality check; we were not built for where we were going."

The upshot was a professional approach with an executive committee, responsible to a board. Dublin Marathon Group currently employs eight core staff across full-time and part-time roles, dwarfed by other major city marathons.

Berlin has more than 90 full-time employees dedicated to the delivery of its marathon, London more than 100 while Boston has around 40.

Things move quickly. In 2016, the event was moved from its traditional October bank holiday Monday to the Sunday, which was a significant factor in the first sell-out of runners of 19,500 that year, a 30% increase on 2015. Three years later they capped out at 22,500, a figure that still remains in place. The Race Series has evolved significantly.

This marks Kennedy’s first time in the hotseat as a full-time employee, previously contracted to oversee all the technical elements of the race.

The role is wide ranging, but managing relationships is the recurring theme, from the committee members and their respective teams, to key stakeholders such as Dublin City Council, businesses, medical staff and the guards.

Kennedy has never run the Dublin marathon - open water swimming is where his exercise passion lies – but an intimate knowledge of the course is paramount. He is part of the annual recces of the route, where new bike racks and electric car charging points, poles and bollards come under scrutiny.

Planning for the 2027 renewal is already well underway, and each year he fields questions whether the event can be expanded, with 47,000 looking for an entry for 2026.

"It’s great, but of course it can be better," he says. "I would like to see it grow, but we have always grown organically. There are certain challenges we have to overcome and you have to build to scale. Bringing 20,000 people into a Georgian enclave at the start, with everyone exiting through one point, creates its own restrictions.

"We are constantly talking to Dublin City Council and relevant stakeholders in not just growing the race, but growing elements of the race and doing more on the course while the race is on. The process is a long one."

Most of the preparation work is complete for next Sunday, though that isn’t to underestimate Kennedy’s weekend.

"I don’t really sleep the night before," he says. "Whether it’s the weather, counting barriers (around 8,000 will be dotted around the capital)…I’m not worried, but there are a lot of balls in the air."

His marathon morning starts at around 3.30am making final checks around the wider road closures and steward allocation.

Linking in with event control, where around 45 people from An Garda Síochána, HSE, Dublin Fire Brigade and National Transport Authority work out of a communications hub is what greases the wheels on the day. Every single decision taken is logged.

"There is a massive framework that underpins the management and safety of the event that nobody sees. And no runner should see that. They have enough to contend with."

It’s all focus then on the start. Kennedy will give Michael Donnellan, the man who has started the race for 35 years, the nod with 15 seconds to go. The wheelchair race is first, followed by four waves of runners.

"Once everyone is away, there is that bit of relief," he says. "The four or five people key to that, we’d all shake hands and say well done. I remember doing that as a kid. We’re clinging on to some of the old-school rituals for as long as we can."

The tidy up begins as soon as the last participant crosses the Liffey with huge teams getting to work to return the Merrion Square area back to normality.

While thousands of runners and supporters slip into the evening time soaking up the day’s exploits, organisers are beavering away.

Kennedy remembers years when they were still going by midnight, but now there is time to meet other committee members and volunteers for an hour or two to reflect on another event.

More often than not he gets a call from his wife Éabha, who manages the waves of runners in the morning, for his dinner order before the kitchen closes.

The Dublin marathon is moving further away from the amateur era with every passing year, but Kennedy recognises that the current organisers are merely standing on the shoulders of giants.

"We talk about it like it’s a jersey. I’m in the jersey now and I’ll try and make the event as good as I can before somebody else carries on the baton. That’s how I got it."