Irish Cycling Mourns Passing of Shay O'Hanlon
Cycling Ireland is saddened to announce the passing of Shay O’Hanlon who was one of Ireland’s greatest domestic riders, a key figure in the unification of cycling on the island and in the formation of Cycling Ireland and was also a member of the Hall of Fame.
His formal name was ‘Seamus,and he sometimes signed himself as ‘Sé’, but he was best known in cycling circles as ‘Shay’ or simply as ‘O’Hanlon’.
To this day, Shay is the most successful rider in Rás Tailteann history, winning four events outright as well as 24 stage wins and 37 yellow jerseys.
Three of those Rás Tailteann wins were consecutive (1965-67) and, even more remarkably, he wore the yellow jersey on every stage over those three years.
Shay O’Hanlon (left) after coming second in the final stage of his first Rás Taileann at the age of 17 in 1959. He was beaten by the 1958 winner of the event, Mick Murphy (right).
O’Hanlon could not represent Ireland officially and he never got the opportunity to compete internationally in events such as the Olympics or World Championships. This was because he was a member of the 32-county National Cycling Association (NCA) which was the largest of three cycling federations on the island in the 1950-60s but was not recognised by the UCI as it did not confine its jurisdiction to the 26 counties at that time.
O’Hanlon became President of NCA in 1973 and soon initiated discussions on reconciliation that led to the formation of the Irish Cycling Tripartite Committee (ICTC) in 1978, composed of representatives of the three organisations in existence at that time. Its purpose was to cooperate on jointly administering cycling on the island and O’Hanlon served as its Chairman for a period.
This, in turn, led to the three bodies formally unifying in 1987 to become the Federation of Irish Cyclists (FIC) – now known as Cycling Ireland – and O’Hanlon was one of its first Board of Directors.
Cycling Ireland President, Ciaran Cannon has paid tribute saying, “Shay O’Hanlon was a giant of Irish cycling. His extraordinary achievements as a rider secured his place in our history, but his legacy extends far beyond competition. At a time when Irish cycling was deeply divided, Shay had the vision and generosity to help bring people together, laying the foundations for the unified Cycling Ireland we know today. We owe him an enormous debt of gratitude, and, on behalf of Cycling Ireland, I extend my deepest sympathies to his family and his many friends throughout the cycling community.”