‘It’s really nice he can see me in the water’ – Connemara’s Patricia Larkin delights son (2) as she takes on world at Special Olympics

Mere months later and Patricia was swimming in a world final with son Patrick (2) watching on alongside a contingent from back home in Connemara.

The young Irish team came within seconds of a medal in the relay after being upgraded to the most difficult division.

Patricia’s mother Maureen broke the news of her qualification to her in November.

“I didn’t believe her,” Patricia recalled. “I went training that night and they all told me and I burst into tears. I’ve a two-year-old, so he’s here supporting me, and my mum and dad, and his dad is here as well.

“It’s really nice that he can see me in the water because he’s getting into swimming now as well. I’ve been seeing him on the days I’m not swimming and I’m really proud that he’s actually in Berlin supporting me.”

Maureen yesterday insisted that her grandson was able to recognise his mum from the stands.

“She’d wave over and we’d say, ‘Mammy’s over there’,” she said. She added that the joy of seeing her daughter represent Ireland on the world stage was “breathtaking”.

“The atmosphere, everything about it – it’s a dream come true.”

Ellie Armstrong (16), of Omagh, Co Tyrone, competed strongly in the 200m freestyle final just minutes before jumping back into the water for the relay event.

It’s been a balancing act in recent months training for the Games and her GCSE exams, she said.

“It was kind of like two different forces trying to pull me down at the same time,” she said with a grin. The exams “went a lot better than I expected. I had my usual youthful moments of emotion, but I just pulled through them I suppose.”

Despite seeing the relay team miss out on medals, Eoin O’Connell, of Dundrum, south Dublin, managed to pick up bronze in the open-water swimming event.

His dad George attributed the success to “determination over adversity” as Eoin sticks to a strict routine to be at his best throughout the year.

“He just knows that’s what he wants to do and he’s a self-starter,” George said. “He would get up early in the morning and he would go swimming by himself. All during the winter he swam. He understands fully what this is and he knows what it means. He knows he’s swimming for Ireland.”

A beaming George put the squad’s achievement into perspective, pointing out that Ireland finished fifth out of 25 in the world.

“We’re very proud of the whole team,” he said. “That’s an incredible result. There are many of the top athletes in the world – if you told them they’d get a fifth place in an Olympic final, they’d take your hand off for it.

“The effort they’ve all put in there is incredible and you have to credit the coaches, you really do. Their own time that the coaches put in to train them, you can’t put a price on it,” he said.

Elsewhere, there were tears of joy in the athletics side when Kerry’s Ryan Griffin claimed silver in the mini-javelin. Ryan jumped into the arms of his coaches and family in some of the most heartwarming scenes of the week. He had earlier competed in the 100m sprint.

At the Games, Ireland is never far from the minds of those in the positions of power.

That’s not surprising, given the CEO is Mayo native Mary Davis, who this week has been carrying her Ireland 2003 volunteer jacket to mark the 20th anniversary of the “landmark” Irish Games.

Tim Shriver, son of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was near the Irish contingent at Berlin’s swimming complex.

His message was simple: the Games should get back to Ireland.

“We have to come back,” the chairman of the Special Olympics board said. “It’s 20 years now since we’ve had World Games in Ireland. They remain a landmark of our movement, the point of which our movement grew to become a full force in the global sports world and a full force for global messaging around inclusion and we wanna come back to Ireland.

“That’s up to the Irish – Irish people have to ask us, that’s all it takes. We rarely turn down an invitation, we’d be delighted to come back some day if leaders in the country felt that it was possible.”

And while it’s not far from the minds, Berlin is still a long way from the west of Ireland, Patricia Larkin’s dad Kevin explained.

“I prefer Connemara,” he said, “open spaces” being the clincher.