All-Ireland winning Limerick hurler reveals battle with eating disorder

ALL-IRELAND winning Limerick hurler Barry Hennessy has spoken of his battle with an eating disorder and revealed he still has a "damaged relationship" with food.

Goalkeeper Barry, the understudy to Nickie Quaid on the senior panel, lifted the lid on his struggles in the hope of helping other people in sport who may be suffering from similar issues.

The Kilmallock man, who has been on all four of Limerick's recent Liam MacCarthy winning panels and has four club county medals, appeared on the Players Voice podcast with another goalkeeper, the former Cavan star Alan O’Mara.

The 33-year-old admitted he grew up a "heavy child" as he progressed through Ardscoil Ris, saying he ate chicken rolls and breakfast rolls on a daily basis. But when there was a suggestion he was going to make the minor panel, things changed.

Hurling - and particularly goalkeeping - is very much a part of the Hennessy family fabric. His father Tom also played between the sticks, representing Limerick at senior and under-21 levels, while he also appeared in the All-Ireland club decider for the Balbec on St Patrick's Day 1993.

"Since I could stand I had a hurley in my hand. My Dad obviously used to play for Limerick and I had granduncles who played for Limerick. So you were involved in a family who was steeped in it. I think you nearly get identified as a county hurler, so it was a case of proving oneself. You only identified yourself as being a county hurler, and that was the end goal, and you were going to do anything to get there."

Speaking about his progression, Barry said: "It would have started towards my fifth or sixth year in school. You're probably a bit more conscious about what you're eating. You're in with a shout. My Dad was involved in the 21s at that stage, and he probably let it slip I was being looked at. I just started cleaning up then, I was watching what I was eating, I probably was restricting myself a bit too much. I can remember the vice-principal at Ardscoil Ris saying to me that I'd lost loads of weight, and asked if everything was ok. I think that was the start of the restrictions side of things."

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In his early years at the former Limerick Institute of Technology, unable to play on the Fitzgibbon Cup team due to new rules around freshers, he recalled "swelling" up to 16-and-a-half stone eating Subway and cookies every night, admitting he was "eating his feelings".

Being a regular gym attender, he also started buying proteins to bulk up, knowing nothing about the impacts of it.

This, he said brought paranoia about his fluctuating weight.

It was off the back of this that the goalkeeper believes things began to escalate, and he developed an eating disorder, something he self-diagnosed as bulimia.

"I remember going out for a Chinese for my birthday with my family, and running up to the toilet to get sick after the starter and putting my fingers down my throat to get sick. The same thing after the main course. I remember coming home that evening and weighing myself to make sure I had not put on weight, fat in my eyes. It accelerated from there, and became a daily thing. It was morning, lunchtime and evening-time. You'd get sick and then stand up on the weighing scales to see where you are at," Barry recalled.

Friends began to worry about his appearance, but he insisted he was fine, despite dropping to under 11 stone at one stage.
If he knew he was going to be playing in a televised match, he said he would not eat for two-or-three days before-hand.

One night though, it got too much. Coming home from college to train with Kilmallock, Barry said he sat outside his home and broke down in tears.

"Whether it was a mini-breakdown or what, I don't know. My life would have revolved around protein shakes, and if I ate a bit of food, it was down to the toilet and throw it up. Water in my system, I didn't take it into account. There were times I was taking five or six protein shakes a day," he said.

It was an intervention by Tony Considine who was the then manager of the Kilmallock hurlers, which saw Barry bin the protein shakes. But it did not stop his problems entirely, the hurler admitting there was a time he attempted to cut his arm as a "cry for help."

Back in 2011 Ciaran Carey advised him he had to stop losing weight, and this remained in his mindset going forward.

His problems only really started to subside when he returned to the Limerick senior panel after a two-year hiatus in 2014, having first been called up in 2010.

Barry, who works as a wellness product specialist for healthcare firm Uniphar told the Players Voice podcast that his eating disorder still leaves a legacy.

"To this day, I still won't eat chocolate, I won't eat Tayto's, I won't eat take-aways. I've started to soften a bit on that, my good wife has helped me with that," he said.

Run in the dark in Limerick for those who dream to walk

Even on his return to the Limerick panel, Barry refused to eat carbohydrates for five years for fear that they would make him heavy again.

"I became known as the guy who didn't eat rubbish in general. You become known for that, and there's a persona you need to keep up. It fit in well with the intercounty persona," he said.

He only shared the challenges he had with food in a group setting with the senior hurling panel's sports psychologist Caroline Currid, with the response he got from his teammates nothing but fully supportive.

It was in the wake of Limerick's 2018 championship win - where a 45-year drought came to an end - that Barry admits he enjoyed his first burger in a decade, on a team holiday in New York.

"Even the relief of sitting around with a couple of the lads, with Hego [Gearoid Hegarty], Richie English and Barry Nash, and feeling normal for once. That you're able to enjoy it, and you don't have to work it off, or put it in the toilet, that you're just one of the lads," he said.

Barry still does not drink alcohol on a regular basis, but even to have a couple of drinks in the wake of championship wins is "massive" for him.

"With everything that went on in the past, I probably would have isolated myself and excluded myself from the group. I'd have not have gone on nights out. I would have missed out on a lot of the stories the lads would have in training. That was my own decisio nat the time, but I'm conscious that since 2018, the best part of what we are doing now is the memories with the lads inside and outside of training, and the experiences we have had. These are things that will carry through with you," he added.

Asked what advice he would give to people who might be struggling with an eating disorder, he said: "Don't suffer alone, don't suffer in silence. It's an extremely hard topic to broach with someone. But my experience was prolonged by me being stubborn and not wanting to admit I had a problem - and not seeking help. Reach out to someone and speak to someone."

To listen to the podcast in full, please click here

If you are a GPA member and impacted by this conversation, please call the GPA’s 24/7 helpline on 1800 98 92 85 or text ‘GPA’ to 50808. If you are not a GPA member and are impacted by this conversation, please check out bodywhys.ie for more information on eating disorders, body image issues and support services.