Ronan Clarke stands for a portrait during the launch of TG4's award-winning Laochra Gael series at the Light House Cinema in Dublin. The Gaelic sport biography series returns with eight new GAA legends profiled for Season 23. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
By John Harrington
Much like sport itself, the sport best documentaries should elicit a range of emotions.
You’ll experience the full gamut of them if you tune in to TG4’s Laochra Gael profile of former Armagh footballer, Ronan Clarke.
His career was one of lofty highs and desperate lows. A rollercoaster sequence of early career glory, hellish injuries, redemptive comebacks, and off the field personal struggles sometimes stretched him thin.
We usually only see the one-dimensional side of our GAA heroes that plays out on a green sward in front of us and have little knowledge of their lives or personalities beyond that narrow prism.
Clarke is a shy, softly spoken man, so when he opens up about his struggles away from the bright lights it is all the more affecting.
After he ruptured his cruciate in 2007 he went to some dark places but he thankfully eventually found the strength to seek help and was diagnosed with depression.
It was a hugely important moment in his life and he hopes by talking about it he might be able to help others.
“At that time, I came out and said about it, and I just felt a whole weight off my shoulders,” says Clarke.
“Dr. Frances O’Hagan helped me a lot through that time.
“She says ‘there's medication here,’ and yes, I went on medication for a while but after I weaned myself off it, I noticed things like exercise and eating right and all that there would help me, so I'm very grateful for her.
“I talked to my father about it and as he says, he knew there was something wrong. But it was up to me to come forward with it to him, and just say it to him, but he was a rock for me in that stage too.
“Hopefully, they hear my story and people can learn from that and they can go and ask for help. That stigma was there with mental health at that time, and I was talking to plenty of people at that time and they looked at it and more or less frowned upon it.
“But now, it's more or less out in the open and a lot of people have come out about it and it does exist among us all. Hopefully, it just carries some people through.”
Ronan Clarke of Armagh in action against Seamus Moynihan of Kerry during the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Armagh and Kerry at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile.
When you watch his Laochra Gael episode, the impression it leaves is one of a man who is now very content in his life and has a brilliant support structure around him.
But in the same way he still has some physical aches and pains from a playing career that require some minding, he’s also aware that his mental health is something that needs to be tended to on an ongoing basis.
“It just doesn't go away, it's a day-to-day thing, you just have to keep working on it, and you've got different coping mechanisms.
“Exercise is one of the things so I do a lot of swimming, take the weight off the joints. It's a day-to-day thing, and people will tell you it just doesn't go away.
“I'm not on medication anymore for it, I just try and keep myself healthy. I try and keep myself active as possible.
“At the end of the day, there are times, there were dark days where I was lying up for three months, with a plaster of Paris on, where you couldn't move, and you need to go somewhere.
“I'd be one of those persons not asking for help, or ringing someone, will you go to the shop for me, will you do this here for me?
“And that was mentally draining for me, and obviously the pain too, but I just learned from those days, and hopefully other people take it on board, and learn from it also.”
If your memory of Ronan Clarke the footballer had diminished since his heyday or you never saw him play, his Laochra Gael episode is a vivid reminder of just how brilliant he was.
Young Footballer of the Year in his maiden campaign of 2002 that culminated with him kicking three spectacular points off the great Seamus Moynihan in the All-Ireland Final, Clarke was a proper sporting prodigy.
He was haunted by serious injuries for most of his career thereafter and there’s always a temptation to wonder what peaks he would have scaled had he a clean run at it, but despite the physical pain he endured he’s content with his lot.
“I'm happy with what I achieved,” says Clarke. “I got an All-Ireland, I got Ulster titles, I got leagues.
“I did that in such a short period of time, and I'm indebted to the people who played with me, like Stevie and Oisín and the Macs and Geezer and Paul McGrane and Justin.
“All of that team - they'd always been highly motivated and coming into that culture, I knew we were going to succeed as a team.”
Clarke knows the value of help from others both on and off the pitch, which is why he now plans to pass it on through a new career as a social worker.
“With all these life lessons I've learned over the years I decided I could give something back here," he says. "I applied to Magee College up in Derry and thankfully they accepted me. It's been brilliant.
“At the minute I don't know what sector I'm going to go into. I know I'm not going to change the world or anything like that. But if I can change two or three peoples’ outlook on life in a year, you'd be doing something.”
Laochra Gael Series:
Programme 1: Pádraic Maher, 9.30pm, Thursday 23rd January
Programme 2: Marc Ó Sé, 9.30pm, Thursday 30th January
Programme 3: Ursula Jacob, 9.30pm, Thursday 6th February
Programme 4: Ronan Clarke, 9.30pm, Thursday 13th February
Programme 5: Michael Bond, 9.30pm, Thursday 20th February
Programme 6: Bríd Stack, 9.30pm, Thursday 27th February
Programme 7: Ben & Jerry O’Connor, 9.30pm, Thursday 6th March
Programme 8: Eamon McGee, 9.30pm, Thursday 13th March