The Liam Toolan Memorial was a classic race on the Irish cycling calendar. The event used a 11 mile circuit around the 'Small Naul' climb and Ballyboughil in north county Dublin with the start finish usually in Swords. The race distance was always close to 100 miles.

As one of Ireland's premier events, it attracted the top riders from all over the country and was a race everyone wanted to win. The event was usually held in April. In Ireland it can be a lottery as to what the weather will be like, on this occasion it was wet with continuous drizzle. It made the race more testing, and as they say 'when the going gets tough - the tough get going' that held true for this race.

This video was taking at a time when there was little coverage of Irish cycling events, I found it on an old video tape and digitized it to share on YouTube. It may not be of interest to everybody, but for those who were racing back then it will bring back memories of a different era.

This video was taken on a video camera from 1980, in the rain. While old and poor quality, it shows huge numbers racing back then and how hard the races were, plus a lot less traffic.

Includes riders such as;- Seamus Kennedy*, John McQuaid, Bobby Power*, Cormack McCann, Stephen Spratt*, Joe Barr, Shane Clarke, Stephen Delaney*, Paul McCormack*, Philip Cassidy*, Mick Walsh, David McCaul, Frank Relf, Raymond Power, Lesley McKay, Seamus Downey, John Shortt, Finn O'Sullivan, Kevin Martin, Sean Lally, Brendan Murray... and many more.

Names with the '*' after them were Rás winners

Thanks to John Galvin for bringing me around on the motorbike.

The event was hosted by the Emerald CRC.

The Winner was John McQuaid of the promoting club.

Video and editing by Peter Purfield