'I wasn't feeling sorry for myself': Cancer treatment, managing New York, and facing neighbour Mickey Harte
Declan Bogue
ON HIS WAY to the emergency room in a New York hospital in March, Ronan McGinley knew he had been kidding himself.
Abdominal pains. Indigestion. What? For a couple of weeks?
One morning the pain became too much to bear. He was absolutely swamped with work. He was swamped at home too, with his wife Kerri very busy in her career and their son, Tomás.
And then there was getting New York ready for the Connacht championship.
He hadn’t time to be sick.
It was nine days out from the Galway game.
He hadn’t time to be sick.
Management were ready. The players were ready. They had put in a shift.
It wasn’t the time.
But when has cancer ever asked for the right time?
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Growing up on the family farm on the Whitebridge Road just outside Ballygawley, Ronan McGinley was the youngest of seven brothers to Terry and Deirdre; two of whom, Enda and Cormac, were part of the Tyrone team that delivered three All-Irelands in the 2000s.
Ronan played for Errigal Ciarán but knew that a life away from home was his preference. He relocated to New York. The Rockland GAA club and the New York county team became his sporting outlets. He then spent a few years coaching and helping with the management in a backroom capacity when his playing days wound down.
Let’s get back in the emergency room though.
A scan revealed a blockage in the colon. A colonoscopy the following day went exploring right up to the point it found a large tumour blocking up his colon.
As samples were sent away and plans to plot his next few steps were made, he kept going, kept turning up at New York training. He told the rest of the management team, but not the players.
“I decided it was going to be a distraction for the players ahead of the Galway game,” he says.
The skirl of the bagpipes led the two teams out onto the Gaelic Park pitch on 6 April, in the quirkiest of GAA settings. The hype-ometer needle was in the red. Stars and stripes mixed with tricolours and Galway flags. The Two Johnnies were in the crowd doing their thing.
Matthew Tierney had a goal within five minutes. Hot damn!
Despite that, New York reeled off three consecutive points before half-time to leave them right in the game at the break.
With twenty minutes to go, Galway took over. No shame, no disgrace. New York players were given a week off.
When they came back into training on the following Tuesday night, McGinley had to tell them.
“I knew I would be going for surgery and knew I would be off my feet for a period of time,” he says.
“It’s not something you can hide from the group when the manager is not there and I wanted to keep them informed.
“I’m sure it was a bit of a shock to the lads. But to be fair, everybody kept going and the management divvied out responsibilities in terms of bits and pieces that I was doing for whenever I was leaving before the surgery.”
Before that, he had people he could lean on. Having been part of previous New York backroom teams, he’s been immersed in Gaelic football and coaching.
He and Enda are close and after managing Errigal Ciarán to county and Ulster titles before the All-Ireland club final defeat to Cuala, the next GAA engagement Enda had was to take a couple of training sessions for New York in The Bronx.
His work as a physio in Craigavon Area Hospital and assisting in surgeries has led to a close relationship with the former Armagh player, Dr Kevin McElvanna who is a specialist in this area of cancer.
“Whenever I was diagnosed first and bits and pieces of big results were coming back, I obviously wasn’t sure of the surgical plan, or treatment plan,” outlines Ronan.
“After two phone calls I was talking to Kevin, when he just talked me through it in a language that I understood.
“So, whenever I was sitting in the doctors out here and they were explaining stuff, I wasn’t overawed by what they were saying. It was kind of like, okay, well that’s exactly what Kevin was saying.
“It just gave me reassurance, you know, he was very good with his time, to take the time and go through that with me. And that’s the power of the GAA community. In terms of somebody always knows somebody, and they’re willing to help out.”
And then there were the calls home. His mother Deirdre, retired from teaching in the local St Ciaran’s school, has had several experiences with cancer.
It wasn’t great news to be sharing. Especially out here. It’s difficult, not being at home and not being around to talk, with her experience, you know what I mean?
“She has a very sort of clear perspective on it – that it’s all manageable. Talk you through the steps to figure it out. It was very considered.”
He went in for surgery on 2 May. They removed 90% of his colon. His body functions off the remainder now.
“There were secondary grey areas where they found cancer as well, apart from the large tumour, so that’s why they decided to take as much as they could,” he says.
He spent two weeks in hospital and the recovery wasn’t particularly straightforward.
He was on no food or water for five days, losing over two stone overall. He ended up being fed through a tube into his stomach.
With 10% remaining, the colon still serves the same function as before, just with more frequency.
“I’ve got results back now, that it was stage two cancer. It was confined to the colon, which means that long term, it’s more monitoring than having to go for chemotherapy or radiotherapy,” McGinley says.
The advantages of early detection. He will be very closely monitored with three or four comprehensive checks a year. He might have to change his diet, something he’ll figure out as he goes along.
He got out of hospital on 14 May, a Thursday.
Five days later he showed up for a New York training session.
“I wasn’t worth much on the Tuesday night, but I wanted to get back at it. Doing what I could.
“I didn’t want to be wallowing or doing anything like that. But I pushed myself to get back, to get back into the football and get back in the routine.”
They’re a stoic lot, the McGinleys.
When we talk to him, he leaves his desk at work to take the call. He’s the Chief Operating Officer at Coyle Construction.
Their offices are in midtown Manhattan, the halfway point between the Empire State Building and the Rockefeller Centre. He could take a dander over to Central Park for his lunch break if he so chooses. It’s a long way from the Whitebridge Road.
But all the same, work? Really? Is he going for Employee of the Month?
“Well…” he explains, “Kerri actually now is the owner of the company.
“In the middle of all this unrest, we were purchasing the company. Or Kerri was.
“That’s her background, her family have a civil engineering company back home that I worked with; McFadden Civils. That’s how we met, we ended up working together and whenever she came in as a partner in this company, I came in to work alongside her and then now she is the owner.
“Like when I was in the hospital, I had the laptop open doing bits and pieces, keeping the mind occupied.
“I think it definitely helped me. I know when I got home from the hospital I was on the sofa and I was afraid to move, I was so sore. But that nearly made things worse, not moving and not getting up.”
He continues, “To be fair to Kerri, she was she was dealing with a hell of a lot. She was dealing with the purchase of the company, she was dealing with me being in the hospital, looking after Tomás. A serious woman to do it all at the same time.”
Help came from other sources. The people of Rockland GAA came to visit. They called in with Kerri and checked what she needed.
His backroom team in New York kept him going. He was glad to have all the distractions.
Emotionally, he’s had to be patient with himself.
You get that initial shock from the diagnosis. And then, for me it was kind of like breaking it down into, ‘Right, I have to prep for surgery and then have the surgery and then, you know, recovery from the surgery and long term down the road…’
“It was just trying to compartmentalise it a little bit. Break it down into stages that I could work through,” he says.
“Kerri was very direct in terms of like, ‘You have something you have to be getting out for, you’ve a Tailteann Cup that you want to go home for. You can’t be doing those things if you’re lying in the bed. You’ve got to be up, you’ve got to be going.’
“She can put stuff in perspective, made sure that I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself. In one way I was lucky that the surgery went well, everything (went) the way it was meant to go.
“I’m lucky in that long-term treatment isn’t necessary. Being at stage two, it’s not the worst outlook, there’s people out there obviously are going through a lot worse.
“I have to be thankful for that, and make sure that as much as I can take the goodness that I’ve got out of it.”
On Wednesday night, the New York travelling party flew east to Dublin, landing on Thursday morning.
The rest of the day was about getting acclimatised to the time difference and flushing the flight out of their legs. The plan on Friday was to gain access to O’Connor Park, Tullamore for a bit of a kick-around and get used to the pitch ahead of meeting Offaly in the Tailteann Cup on Saturday.
And then, for the first time as manager, Mickey Harte (along with Declan Kelly) will come up against a New York team, managed by his club mate.
Ronan played for Harte previously at St Ciaran’s school.
With the club, he was 17 when Harte took on Errigal for one season before becoming the Tyrone manager. He also took the Errigal U21 team, where Ronan got to line out alongside Enda who was in his final year at that level.
They won that championship, beating an Owen Mulligan-inspired Cookstown in the final.
The roads both have taken to this point have been mazy and complicated. Harte has had his own cancer experiences for two years between 2015 and 2017.
The New York lads haven’t missed their chance and are ribbing McGinley with the quip that between the two managers, they have three All-Ireland titles.
But after all the tight handshakes and the catch-ups, a ball will be thrown in and the footballers of New York will play the footballers of Offaly.
“I’ve been very good in terms of making sure that we keep the thing going on, to play a game, whether I was going to be there or not,” says McGinley.
“We want the players to perform as well as they can. And because for them, you know, this is their opportunity in a county jersey, their opportunity in Ireland, and I would rather focus on that, than my own thing, like. Because everybody is going through stuff.
“Unfortunately, cancer affects most people’s families, you know what I mean.
“You have to be grateful. Like, not grateful. Grateful sounds weird in this context. But it could be worse, maybe a worse diagnosis, it could be worse.
“It’s about doing as much as I can, when I can, you know? Because you never know what’s coming or you never know what’s down the line.
“Make the best of it now when you’re at it.”
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