1. When did you start driving (what age) and what did you first drive (elaborate)?
When I was 16 (53 years ago) my father was driving us down to Wicklow. On a narrow country road between Enniskerry and Roundwood he stopped our VW Beetle out of the blue. He said Máire (my mother) get into the back seat with my sister and three brothers. He told me to get into the driver’s seat (I had never even sat behind the wheel of anything before). He sat into the passenger seat and said ‘Now Patricia, drive the car and aim for the centre
of the bridge’. I can hear his voice like it was yesterday. I asked him some time later how he knew I really wanted to drive and he said he could feel me looking at him all the time – how right he was.
2. How did you get involved in Motorsport?
I have always loved driving and one wet miserable winter’s morning about 7 years ago I was looking at sports cars for sale – just dreaming, when Senan (O’Connor) called to our house. We got talking and he told me of this fantastic Sport called hillclimbing and that he had the very car for me blocking a gap in a ditch. The rest is history.
3. What is your daily driver and what is your competition car for the weekend?
I drive a chipped 3-litre BMW and my competition car is an old 1300 Mini.
4. What is your occupation?
Mussel farmer and long suffering mother.
5. What is your highest achievement to date in Motorsport?
In 2010 I won Class 1 and was voted Sportswoman of the Month in September of that year by the Cork Evening Echo. I was also delighted to be crowned Queen of the Hills when I won Class 1 in St. Goueno, France in 2013.
6. What is your favourite thing about Hillclimbing?
It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from everybody is so friendly and if you have a problem with your car everybody is there to give you help and advice.
7. What car would you most like to drive on a hill?
I would love to have the balls to drive a really fast single seater.
8. Who is your Motorsport idol?
In hillclimbing it is definitely Simon & Deirdre McKinley.
9. What are your hobbies outside of Hillclimbing?
I love to play cards and being involved in all the sporting activities of my children.
10. If you were stuck on a desert island, what three things would you need to bring with you?
(a) A supply of water(b) a friend (preferably a man) (c) a solar powered means of communication to call for help when I got fed up being stuck on a desert island.
Finally, is there anyone you want to thank (Marshals, Sponsors, etc.)?
Of course I would like to thank everybody – the marshals, the
hillclimbing committees, the residents on the hills, the championship
sponsor, the co. councils, the photographers, and my fellow competitors with their families and mechanics – hope I didn’t forget anybody.