Limerick teenager to take on emotional challenge in honour of his late Dad

A LIMERICK teenager is taking on an astonishing challenge in memory of his father, who died aged 40 while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

Chef James O’Connor sadly passed away just metres away from the top of the fourth highest mountain in the world after suffering a fatal bout of altitude sickness on the day he turned 40 years old.

He is remembered with a primary school named in his honour in Sierra Leone.

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Now, James’s eldest son Chris, 17 - who shares a birthday with his dad - is continuing his legacy, raising money for the charity which built the school, the Schools Health Foundation with a 100km run.

“My dad has inspired me in so many ways,” Chris said. “Every day after school, he’d be rushing home. He’d go to the gym before work so he could rush home to me and play soccer with us, just to put a smile on our faces.”

Money raised from the sponsored event will also be donated to the well-loved Limerick charity, Children’s Grief Centre, which provided support to Chris, and his two siblings, James, 10 and Lilly, 14 in the wake of their dad’s untimely death.

At around 2am on Saturday, November 29 - just a week out from Chris’s 18th birthday on Friday, December 5 - the teenager will set off on a 100km run from his home in Dooradoyle.

Above: The late James O'Connor, pictured with his three children, Lilly, James jr and Chris after completing the Great Limerick Run

His finishing point, between 12 and 14 hours later, will be his father’s home village and final resting place at St Catherine’s Graveyard, Kilcully, near Whitechurch in Cork.

Running is a passion Chris shared with his father.

Already this year, the Mungret Community College student has completed a number of races including the Great Limerick Run relay marathon, the Cork Marathon and the Kerry Way Ultra marathon.

It was following these that his mother Grace suggested he run to St Catherine’s Graveyard in Kilcully, Cork.

“I had thought about doing this before. Now I had put in the work to do marathons and ultramarathons, I decided it was something I could think about doing. We looked into it, and worked out it is 100km from our house to the graveside. It was the next step up from doing the ultramarathon,” Chris explained.

Grace developed a route between Limerick and north Cork to avoid motorways.

James and Grace tying the knot in the presence of their children Lilly, James jr and Chris

There will be stop-offs in Croom, Charleville, Buttevant, Mallow and Whitechurch to allow the 17-year-old to refuel, and receive some support.

Friends and family will join him at different stages of the run, and ensuring his safety will be Shane, a family-friend who will drive behind the young man as he bids to complete the challenge.

His mum is full of praise for their eldest child, saying: “His training is amazing. I am at home cooking Sunday dinner, and he is out running marathons.”

In recent weeks, Chris has run varying distances of between 32km and 60km to prepare for the big day.

“There are no words for it. Every day, he gets up, he goes to school, he does after-school study as he has his Leaving Certificate this year. That doesn’t finish until 6pm. I’d pick him up, then he’d have a bite to eat, then he’d go for a run and then to the gym. He’ll come back and do some study again. It’s so constant,” Grace explains.

He’s out in all-weather, she adds, saying: “A couple of weeks ago, I suggested we get a take-away because it was really bad out. We all sat down, had our take-away, watched a film, then Chris said he needed to go out for a run.”

“Everything Chris has done, he is representing the whole family. It has kept me going, it has kept my mind going, it has helped me through my grief. He is just 17 and look at everything he has been through. I literally want to tell every person I meet how proud I am of him,” added Grace.

Chris is equally appreciative of his family for their backing.

“I wouldn’t be doing this without their support. I had the idea of it, and I put in the training and the work to be able to do it.

But mam was the one who brought it up to me, who turned the idea in my head into the real thing. She planned the route, she got in contact with people. She turned my thoughts into reality basically. I know I am 100% able to run the run but I’d not be able to do the planning it takes.”

Chris has a tattoo on his left leg, which reads “no surrender”, one of his father’s favourite phrases.

“James had a lot of sayings, and ‘no surrender’ was one of them. He would caption it in his posts. I thought it was fitting,” said the teenager.

He acknowledges his dad was “really strict”.

“But it was all in goodwill. It was obviously worth it now, as I have the discipline to do this on my own. He put down the foundations to give me the grounding that I now have to run 100km. Maybe I didn’t like it in the moment when I was 14, and he was telling me to get up a bit earlier. But I am grateful for it. It stands with me, and will forever stand with me,” Chris adds.

His widow Grace says in spite of James’s strictness, he was also “really really kind, really funny”.

“He was just a big kid. He’d come in, and be constantly cracking jokes. It used to drive me crazy. He was a great dad. He found a gift and wanted to give it away,” she said.

As well as the school in Sierra Leone, Chris’s name has been given to a perpetual trophy in his native Cork, for an annual 10km fun-run.

Next year, the family plan to fundraise for daughter Lilly to go and visit the school in Africa. It will then be up to his children to organise events in the future to remember their father.

For Chris, this is only the start.

“I’m very grateful to have the opportunity and be in a place where I can honour him with this. It’s only the beginning for me,” he concluded.

Chris is trying to raise €5,000 for charity.

If you can help, visit https://tinyurl.com/32k8tthy.