Kenny Egan, silver medallist, coulda been a contender. But he gave up the hollow glory of golden gloves for the infinite riches of contentment.

One Wednesday in the autumn of 2008, two kids squared up against each other on a patch of grass in Condalkin, fists raised in a pugilistic pose. The day before, a neighbourhood hero had returned from Beijing wearing a silver medal, and so they had forsaken soccer for the newest old game in town. As Kenny Egan drove past, he looked out the car window with a sense of pride.

“I came back on the Tuesday,” said Egan, “and the next day there were two kids sparring on the green with a pair of gloves on them. That’s the first time I’d ever seen that in my housing estate,  so I think the Olympics did great for boxing in this country”. Boxing clubs are full to the point of turning people away. Egan’s own club, Neilstown, has finally received a grant that will allow it move out of a school hall and into the ranks of proper boxing clubs, and boxing can look to a securely funded future, behind its figurehead, that other sports can only dream of.

Ireland universally welcomed Kenny Egan home with open arms and open doors. He practically has a car parking space of his own in RTE. He is ubiquitous in the Irish media, gracing the front of the papers as often as the back, and spent months being courted by the international big time. Vegas was calling Kenny Egan to come bask in its neon glow. He would have begun fighting in the same weight class as his hero, Joe Calzaghe, a man with 46 professional fights fought and zero lost, with 32 knockouts to boot. During our interview in the high performance gym of the National Stadium, Egan is cooling down from a workout on an exercise bike. He is wearing a Calzaghe v Roy Jones Jr t-shirt, picked up when he went to New York to watch Calzaghe fight Jones, win, and walk away with $10million for one night’s work. It must have been very tempting indeed. [Read more →]

Feare no more the heate o’th’Sun,

Nor the furious Winters rages,
Thou thy worldly task has don,
Home art gon, and tane thy wages.
Golden Lads, and Girles all must,
As chimney-Sweepers come to dust.

Feare no more the frowne o’th’Great,
Thou art past the Tirants streake,
Care no more to cloath and eate,
To thee the Reede is as the Oake:
The Scepter, Learning, Physicke must,
All follow this and come to dust.

Feare no more the Lightning flash,
Nor th’all-dreaded Thunderstone.
Feare not Slander, Censure rash,
Thou hast finish’d Joy and mone.
All Lovers young, all Lovers must,
Consigne to thee and come to dust.

No Exorciser harme thee,
Nor no witch-craft charme thee.
Ghost unlaid forbeare thee.
Nothing ill come neere thee.
Quiet consumation have,
And renowned be thy grave.

Wherever you are, Dad, we miss you.* [Read more →]

I interviewed Kenny Egan last week, heading in to the National Stadium’s high performance gym for a chat and to watch him do a pads session. We chatted for 15 minutes as he warmed down after his session on an exercise bike.

The interview appeared in the Sunday Business Post as a First Person interview, which is a nice format, but doesn’t allow for much elaboration. The interview as it appears is here, but the wealth of quotes that I got from Kenny deserved a second working, so I’ve written the feature as it could have appeared in a post that will auto-post later on.

Kenny chats away so naturally that really, I could have gone down several interesting streets with it.

One interesting avenue was that the interview was organised using Twitter, which was a first for me. Kenny tweets away here and uses Facebook, Bebo and YouTube to keep his fans in the loop.

“We’ve Twitter there,” says Kenny.  “We’ve Facebook, my Bebo page has over 10,000 hits since we got back from Beijing. Steven, a very good friend of mine, he has been in here recording clips of me working bags, pads, circuits, putting them onto Youtube and Bebo to let the kids see what it’s all about. They only see me fighting in Beijing, they don’t see the stuff that goes in before it and after it.”

The article is timed to go off at around 10.30 this morning, check back in here if you fancy a read.