In honour of their father, who passed away earlier this year, the family of Tommy Madden have kindly donated two perpetual trophies for the first male & female winners of the Fields of Athenry 10km road race which is held every St Stephens Day in the town. To go along with that they have ordered exact replicas of their fathers very last national cross country medal which he won in 1966 & these will also be presented to the male & female winners of the race going forward. The medal is sterling silver with a coloured enamel coating & is a lovely bit of kit.

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Tommy Madden was a founding member, and a star performer with, the famous Derrydonnell AC which dominated Galway Athletics during the 1950’s and 1960’s. A star of track & field, cross-country and road racing, Tommy pioneered athletics in Galway alongside his illustrious Derrydonnell team mates which included Willie Morris, Bernie Rohan, Mick Molloy, Bernie Feeney, Kevin Ryan, Bernie Ruane and many others. 

Tommy won four individual senior Galway cross-country titles in Derrydonnell colours as well as countless other cross country, road and track championships which included several national titles. In 1959 Tommy was just beaten, by Joe Cunningham, for the All Ireland one-mile title on a grass track at the Iveagh Grounds in Dublin. Three weeks after that Joe Cunningham set a new Irish mile record of 4:13.

Derrydonnell AC won the Galway Senior Cross-Country team championship on an amazing fourteen consecutive occasions from 1956 to 1969 and during their period at the very top of Irish middle, long distance and cross-country running its members won every award and accolade available. They broke new ground for Irish Athletics when they became the first Irish Athletics club to compete in America & their visit to New York in 1961 demonstrated that they were prepared to innovate and to compete outside of the confines of local or even national boundaries. The club also visited and raced in London in 1963.

Good relations existed between the leading AAU club, Donore Harriers, and Derrydonnell AC which resulted in the staging of an historic relay race between the clubs from Ballinasloe and Galway on May Day 1966. This was to play an important role in the formation of the BLE, which encompassed both bodies and achieved international recognition for all Irish athletes.