He was running years before he met Marie his good and devoted wife <br />And Willie Neenan is still running with him 'tis a way of life <br />A World Masters Games over fifty silver medallist in nineteen eighty three <br />I remember in the fifties him and his brother John D <br /> <br />At cross country races in Liscahane just out of the Town of Millstreet <br />The famous Neenan brothers against Cork's best did compete <br />Up and down the wet and high fields they set a cracking pace <br />For the glory of old Millstreet the young Neenan men did race. <br /> <br />John D had the bug of wander in Millstreet he did not stay <br />His future not in Duhallow he now lives in the U S A <br />But Willie is still running and in his seventies he's still seen <br />Outpacing the best of his age in the famous Millstreet green <br /> <br />Duhallow's greatest living athlete so much about him to admire <br />He is a role model for many up and coming athletes and the younger generation he inspire <br />He must have ran hundreds of thousands of miles of roadway yet he's still lively on his feet <br />I recall when Willie Neenan was the one they had to beat. <br /> <br />In more than fifty years in athletics he competed against the best <br />And he never was found wanting when he was put to the test <br />Willie Neenan is still running though the years not on his side <br />To Duhallow and to Millstreet he is one who brought great pride. <br /> <br />That Willie Neenan is still running I am not surprised to hear <br />At sports meetings he will be competing even in his ninetieth year <br />In my school days in the fifties and that's going back in time <br />The flying Neenans of Millstreet inspired the bards to rhyme.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/willie-neenan/
