Under African Skies

For almost a decade, while my life was a head-spinning montage of departure gates,  tournament brackets, travel, competition, pressure- there was one place that slowed  everything down. 

Each year I travelled to Zambia to visit my uncle - a Catholic priest who had chosen to spend  his entire adult life in Africa. He lived simply on the outskirts of the capital, Lusaka, in a  small house amongst the people he served. There were no perimeter walls separating him  from the community, no physical or symbolic distance from the realities of daily life around  him. The house stood open and ordinary among the people he served; only the caged  windows and the heavily bolted steel door leading to the sleeping quarters offered a quiet  reminder of the vulnerability that came with such closeness. In parts of Africa, attacks and  robberies on Catholic priests are not uncommon - for some, they are seen as easy targets. Yet  he chose presence over protection. 

On one side of his home stood a school; on the other, a church. His days were given to  building clinics, schools and places of worship and to supporting those living with poverty  and illness, including many affected by AIDS. 

While he lived freely, immersed in community, my own life felt like a solo pursuit of  constant acceleration. 

I was being squeezed by pressure from all sides, competing at the highest level of  international handball, balancing that with an inter-county Gaelic football career with Cavan,  and when that season closed, stepping straight into club commitments with Mullahoran. 

In the United States, as the dominant player in my sport two different handball organisations  were pulling on me in different directions - the World Players of Handball (WPH), which  governed the professional circuit I depended on financially, and the United States Handball  Association (USHA), custodians of the historic tournaments and the rolls of honour I was  trying to etch my name into. Seasons overlapped and expectations multiplied. Travel blurred  time zones. My body absorbed impact after impact. My mind carried the weight of  responsibility and scrutiny. The pressure, at times, was overwhelming. 

Life became trains, planes and automobiles, and an emotional roller coaster in between. Africa was different. 

It was dust roads and heat. Candlelight instead of screens. Conversations instead of  commentaries. My uncle owned no television for most of those years. Evenings were spent  sitting outside with a beer under a vast, unpolluted sky, talking about faith, purpose and the  human condition.  

He was a deeply spiritual, selfless, unmaterialistic man, enlightened in a way that did not  need to announce itself. 

Within that sanctuary lurked danger, too. He had chosen proximity over protection. His  house, modest and exposed, made him vulnerable to attack. When I once asked him why he  did not move somewhere more secure, he answered calmly that he had not come to Africa to  isolate himself from the people, but to immerse himself in them. 

That sentence stayed with me. 

Africa is a musical place. In Zambian culture, traditional music is said to possess healing  properties. The natives use it to tell stories, to celebrate their faith, and to tap into something  deeper.  

Every morning I woke to the sound of schoolchildren gathering next door, singing and chatting contentedly.  

At weekends, the sound of the church choir would fill the air, voices layered in harmony.  Many evenings I would sit on the porch as the light faded and the choir rehearsed under the  large oak tree in front of my uncles’ house. Their singing carrying across the yard. It was raw  and beautiful and unfiltered. The music seemed to clean the mind. It renewed something  deeper than motivation. It reminded me that life was larger than fixtures and finals. 

One of the earliest visits changed me in a way I did not fully understand at the time. 

My uncle collected me from the airport and drove directly to a medical clinic he had built.  Twelve hours earlier I had left the modern, technological comfort of London; now I stood in  a landscape that felt raw and primitive, and the abrupt shift between those worlds hit with a  force that was both disorientating and instantly transformative.  

I stepped out for a short walk along the dusty road and met a young mother who had just left  the building. We began talking casually. I asked how she was, expecting an ordinary answer.  She looked at me and said quietly, “Not good. I just found out I have ‘the sickness’.” 

She meant AIDS. 

The words stopped me and my mind froze as I tried to process what she had just told me. I  did not know what to say. I felt a heaviness settle in my chest - not because of sport, not  because of competition. 

It was the unfairness of it. I thought of her going home to tell her family, the children she  might be leaving behind. And I felt small in that moment.  

Perspective often arrives uninvited. 

Until then, my stress had revolved around tournaments, form, selection, performance,  reputation. Standing on that road, those concerns rearranged themselves, not because they no  longer mattered - they did - but because they were no longer everything. 

On another evening, sitting outside as the sun dipped, I asked my uncle a question that had  been forming in my mind. 

“How do they find meaning?” I asked, gesturing to the community around us. He paused before answering. 

“They are not looking for meaning,” he said. “They are only looking for survival.” That response altered something fundamental in me.

In the performance world I inhabited, we often over-complicate things. We search for the  perfect plan, the ideal emotional state, the ultimate breakthrough. We look for meaning in  outcomes, validation in applause, identity in medals. Yet, in that moment, I realised that a  mindset of basic clarity can be much simpler: 

Survive the day. Win the moment in front of you. 

In Zambia, life was lived in the present because it had to be; tomorrow was uncertain,  resources were limited. Attention was directed to what could be done now - feed the family,  attend school, support the neighbour, sing in the choir, show up to Mass. 

When I returned to competition, I carried that with me.  

Instead of being overwhelmed by an entire season, I narrowed my focus to the next session.  Instead of mentally replaying potential finals while still in early rounds of championships, I  anchored myself in the rally in front of me.  

When pressure rose, I reminded myself that all I needed to do was survive and win this  moment. Not the tournament, not the legacy. Just this point, this play, this shot, this very  breath. 

That shift simplified everything. 

I’d like to tell you that the chaos suddenly disappeared after this revelation but it doesn’t  work that way. The expectations remained, the pull between organisations, counties and clubs  continued and my body still absorbed the demands of full-time training.  But internally, something was steadier. I stopped searching for something grand and started  committing to what was immediate. 

Africa did not soften my ambition in sport - it refined it.  

It taught me that my personal identity must be broader than performance. That my  contribution to sport and life matters more than image. 

Watching my uncle move through his days - building schools, clinics and churches, sitting  with families in grief, celebrating small victories - I saw a different model of success. There were no trophies on his shelves. No headlines. Yet his life had weight, it had impact, it had  depth. 

He measured his days by service, not status. 

For an athlete living in a world obsessed with outcome, that was grounding. 

Under those African skies, the lessons that I learned showed themselves in how I adjusted the  rhythm of my life, in and out of sport thereafter. 

Clarity surrounding my life had arrived, as it often does, when the noise of life was removed. 

The choir’s voices drifting through the warm evening air reminded me that beauty exists  alongside struggle. The young mother on the dusty road reminded me that time is not  guaranteed. My uncle’s quiet presence reminded me that how you live matters more than how  you are seen.

When I think back on those years now, I see two worlds running in parallel. One was loud,  competitive and relentless. The other was simple, spiritual and raw. The contrast between  them shaped me more than either could alone. 

I carried those lessons that I learned in Africa in my head, like a favourite Zambian tune.  When I think back, I can still hum it now: 

Although high performance demands everything, it should never take everything.  Focus on what is in front of you. 

Regulate yourself before you react.  

Stay connected to something larger than outcome.  

Serve where you can.  

Be present in each moment. Especially under pressure. 

In success, remain grounded. In difficulty, remember perspective. 

We often chase meaning in achievement but it is not found there. It is revealed in awareness - in recognising the privilege of striving, of competing, of having the health and opportunity to  pursue excellence. 

Those trips to Zambia were not an escape from performance; rather, they were preparation of  a different kind. They strengthened a part of me that medals could not reach. 

And if there is one truth those journeys taught me, it is this: 

Surrender yourself to the moment and know that however big something feels, there is  something bigger out there. So just aim to become the strongest version of yourself - not just  in victory, but in character. 

Because long after the noise fades, who you are will matter more than what you won.