Ray McBride, Galway city-born, was a multitude: dancer, singer, actor, writer, runner. And also a “forever friend” to sports journalist Frank Greally.
“He was just outrageously talented, warm hearted: faithful to his roots and his friends,” recalls Greally of the late Ray McBride, a Bohermore-born Claddagh man who passed away five years ago at the age of 69.
As young men, the pair went off together on athletic scholarships to East Tennessee State University, where they spent the better part of their time running cross-country with their fellow ‘Irish Brigade’, with whom they would also play Irish ballads.
“We were handy enough now,” says Greally of their cross-country ability. Their team made it to the collegiate championships where their friend Neil Cusack won first place. Ray won gold in the 3,000m steeplechase at the Catholic Student Games in Madrid, and later won gold medals in the 800m and 1,500m at the Tailteann Games in Dublin.
On Saturdays, though, as students, Greally and Ray would go over to the town of Hiltons, Virginia, where the Carter family had an old grocery store with a backyard stage. Today, the Carter Family Fold is a world famous venue and powerhouse for bluegrass and country.
“Ray was a huge hit up there,” says Greally. “He always travelled around with his tin whistle in his inside pocket, a bodhrán, and his dancing shoes.”
Ray McBride was a skilled musician and a great dancer – he can be found on Youtube performing on the Late Late Show in RTÉ’s archives. He used to dance with his sister, Margaret, as children, before going off to America and picking up Appalachian clogging.
“Any situation, he could adapt to, you know,” Greally remembers. Ray also did work as a sports journalist for a few city newspapers in America, while Greally later founded the magazine Irish Runner.
Originally aiming for a business degree, Ray changed his major to acting after Greally (studying theatre production ) held auditions, and cast him as the lead in Riders to the Sea, which won solid reviews during their first year at university.
The summer after final year, Ray (“to his great surprise” ) managed to score the lead in Playboy of the Western World, produced at the iconic Barter Theatre in the Martha Washington Hotel in Virginia.
“It was a dream start” to his career, says Greally.
Coming home to Galway after university, Ray fell in with the Druid crowd in the early days of the company. He also acted in several TV shows and films, including Into the West. “He could put his hand to anything,” Greally says. “He was just a brilliant entertainer.”
Ray was also a dedicated friend and kind soul. When he got a well-paid part in a film produced by Lelia Doolan, they would shoot very early in the morning down at the docks. On the way to set, Ray never failed to drop a few dollars to the homeless he passed.
“Kindness would have been his middle name. He was always supporting the underdog, the people on the margins.”
According to Greally, Ray “never forgot his roots” in the Claddagh, where before university he worked as a firefighter. His brother Shane, who passed away two years after Ray, was a well respected fire officer in Drogheda.
Ray got cancer about twenty years before he died, affecting what Greally called his two greatest attributes: his voice and his legs. Unable to act, sing, or dance, Ray lived with his mother and sister in the Claddagh until his death in July 2021.
But for Greally, it is those old adventures that are clearest now: “We had wild times, yeah. We lived in the day and we knew no fear at that moment.”
Ray McBride (1952 – 2021 ) was an athlete, Irish dancer and stage, film and television actor.
