Son of city emigrant to take part in Winter Games

Sean Greenwood Ó Foighil, whose mother Sibeal was raised at Upper Newcastle Road, was informed this week that he had qualified for the five member Irish team who are on their way to Sochi in two weeks’ time.

Sibeal, one of nine Foyle children who grew up in Galway, emigrated to Vancouver, Canada, in the early 1980s. Two of her sisters also live in Vancouver and his uncle, Dublin nightclub owner Eoin Foyle, was one of the top DJs in Galway before moving to the capital in the late 1980s.

Sean’s maternal grandparents emigrated to Canada in the 1920s, but he told the Connacht Sentinel this week that they returned to Ireland to raise their family because his great-grandmother could not stand the freezing cold winters.

“My mother and her sisters maintain deep connections to Ireland, which have had profound implications on my life and my identity,” he said.

“I am the third generation of the Ó Foighil family to call both Ireland and Canada home. One of my goals as I compete for Ireland is to keep that bond as strong as ever.”

The Winter Olympics were held in Vancouver in 1988 and Sean began racing the fast individual sport of skeleton on the Olympics course six years ago.

“At the time I was in the middle of completing my university degree and I wanted a new challenge after suffering a couple of shoulder injuries playing rugby,” he said.

Skeletons can reach speeds of over 140 kilometres per hour as competitors zip down a frozen track while lying face down on a small sled. Competitors steer their sleds using their head and shoulders and the sport only became a permanent Winter Games sport in 2002.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.