Eibhlis Moriarty
Episode 306
9 DEC 2024
She competed in a long list of sports from elementary school to high school to university and adult life. Notably, she competed regionally in running and at the world level in dance. Regarding the latter, she is a World Championship-winning professional Irish dancer, and she now dances for coaching. Meanwhile, she ran her first 10K in 2017 and has remained very involved in running. She is the Graduate Lab Coordinator at the University of Nevada Las Vegas for The Optimum Performance Program in Sport (TOPPS), which blends traditional mental health services with sport culture and customized performance coaching.
Notable guest quotes:
“My personal and my professional journey have always been deeply rooted in my Catholic faith.”
“I actually do have a relative, Tom Murphy was Archbishop of Seattle, and I had a very special relationship with my devoutly Catholic grandmother in Chicago and with her we’d gather on Sundays for an Irish breakfast with the Saint Patrick’s Fathers.”
“I played soccer, I was on swim team, I played T-ball … as a little kid, I was on track and field, badminton and tennis, and then as I got into high school, I kept up the running and badminton and dance. And so with the running, I competed regionally and then with dance, I competed at the world level.”
“My family are very, we definitely show our faith before we do any kind of a big endeavor, anything like that, we’ll always have candles lighting or say a prayer, all these different kind of ways of acknowledging our kind of peace in a moment.”
“I found that … of these elite athletes who were all in troops touring the world for River Dance and Lord of the Dance and all have World Championship stages, over 50% of them engaged in spiritual routine, which I classified as either prayer or having a holy medal or something along those lines.”
“I was living in Omaha, Nebraska. A lot of my friends were out golfing … And so, kind of got into it myself and I wish I got into it sooner. I love it. It’s great.”
“I like to start my day being grateful for my health overall and those times in the morning are just kind of where it’s quiet for me and I can reflect.”
“The Pioneer Total Abstinence Association… is a Catholic, an Irish Catholic, organization that is dedicated to just instilling the value of temperance through abstaining from alcohol and so that definitely played an important role for me.”
“I didn’t realize that there is so, how deep – I knew it was always, Irish culture and tradition is deeply intertwined with Catholicism – but I mean even when you go back to how we say hello in the Irish language is ‘Dia Dhuit,’ which means God is with you and then the response is ‘Dia is Mhuire Dhuit,’ which means God and Mary with you.”
“In Ireland there is holy wells scattered across the country, and you typically find one in most towns or villages, and they’re associated with a saint or significant event in Irish Catholic history. And so, people typically will go to these, they’ll visit these wells, when they’re praying for healings or blessings.”
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