Dublin's rocky road to marathon success

The Irish Life Dublin Marathon is in rude health. For this year's edition, the 43rd staging of the event, there were 40,000 entry requests.

Only 22,500 can be accommodated on Sunday, which starts with the wheelchair participants at 8.40am and four waves of participants over the subsequent hour.

There are minor adjustments to this year’s route – a new start line on Leeson Street Lower and the finish line moved to Mount Street Upper – but Europe’s fourth-largest marathon remains one of the most well-respected and popular on the calendar.

The Bank Holiday weekend is now synonymous with the 26.2 mile trek around the capital, with tens of thousands lining the streets to create a carnival like atmosphere along the route.

According to a financial report by UCD, the marathon raises an estimated €26.5 million for the city.

Yet it hasn’t always been this way, and for many years the marathon struggled from one year to the next, desperately seeking sponsors and attempting to raise the profile of the event both domestically and internationally.

After breaking ground in 1980 with the launch of the first-ever Dublin marathon, the early editions were unqualified successes.

By 1982, 11,076 registered to take part, making it the fourth-biggest marathon after London, New York and Honolulu, yet financial concerns were never far from the surface.

It was certainly a different time. There was no chip timing, mass signage or bag drops. Little heed was paid to those under the age of 18 that wished to participate.

Conor Faughnan clocked a time of four hours 20 minutes competing as a 12-year-old in 1981.

"The crowds were so big that there were 30 minutes on the race clock before I passed under the start gantry," he told journalist Sean McGoldrick in 'The