When Ronan Desmond from Templemartin, Co Cork, isn’t out feeding calves, he’s running with his teammates. Ronan is one of three athletes from Bandon Special Olympics Club who will be taking part in the Irish games in Limerick, which will host 1,500 athletes and 600 coaches and delegates.

Ronan and his twin brother Daniel are 15, the youngest in a family of six. Their mother, Noreen, still nurses part-time and their father, Humphrey, is a dairy farmer. From engineering and farming, to accounting and nursing, the four eldest children are all working in very different areas.

Ronan, a student at Our Lady of Good Counsel, Ballincollig, has Down’s syndrome, which results in some learning difficulties, most notably speech problems. Ronan is brilliant at understanding things, but he has to attend speech therapy every week. Noreen says she is able to understand Ronan, “but for strangers it’s very hard”.

Recently he got an iPad with a speech app that talks for him and this has improved his day-to-day life immeasurably.

Winning gold

Bringing home gold for the 50m in 2010 was a glorious moment in this young man’s life.

This year he will take part in the 25m and 50m races in Limerick. Ronan is a huge fan of Ronan O’Gara and watched every single match his hero played.

Bandon Special Olympics club was established in 2005, two years after Bandon hosted Belarus for the World Special Olympics. There are now 20 athletes in the club and they train once a week in Bandon Grammar School with coach, Robert Wilmot. Transition year students from local schools volunteer at the training sessions.

“The volunteers are key to running the club, but we could always use a few more and it is great fun to help the athletes,” says Willie Buckley, chair of the club.

Anyone who won gold at the Munster Special Olympics in May 2013 will represent Munster at the Irish Special Olympics this year.

Ronan and his clubmates Chloe O’Mahony and Anna Murphy are currently training with the Munster team every Saturday in the build up to the games. Each week the team meets in a different place and have recently been to Nenagh, Waterford and Cork.

The Special Olympics take place from 12 to 15 June in Limerick. The contestants will stay in the University of Limerick’s student apartments. Ronan’s mother, Noreen, is going with the three contestants from Bandon as a coach.

They will have to go through a series of heats before the final run. Ronan represented Munster in 2010 as well and absolutely loves the thrill of the games.

Noreen says that the Special Olympics has provided Ronan with independence and friendship in the local community and would highly recommend that other families get involved.

“It has brought him out of himself in so many ways,” she says.

For further information, visit www.specialolympics.ie