Former Limerick principal takes up 'blind tennis' after life-changing aneurysm

A FORMER Limerick principal who suffered a stroke has found a new lease on life after achieving a podium finish at her first international blind tennis tournament.

Mungret native Marguerite Quinn had her life turned upside down when she suffered a brain aneurysm while attending a camogie match in 2016, leading to 12 months of hospital recovery.

“It’s a big thing to leave school on a Friday, in charge of 50 staff and 700 children, to never having that again,” she said of her time as principal of St Nessan’s National School in Mungret, Limerick.

Retiring due to medical grounds one year into her “dream job”, Marguerite, who had to relearn how to walk and has a brain injury as a result of the aneurysm, decided that she needed a “new avenue.”

This year, she challenged the limitations that the aneurysm put on her and enrolled in blind tennis lessons in Killaloe, with local coach Wesley O’ Brien.

Wesley encapsulated the Limerick woman’s fighting spirit through one of the first lines she said to him on arrival.

“She is a very strong willed and headstrong woman. She wanted to know right off the bat if there was an Irish team and how far she could go with this,” he told Limerick Live.

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Visually impaired tennis is categorized from B1, those who are fully blind to B4, with a minor impairment.

Marguerite plays in the B2 category, playing with 10 degrees of vision.

Lessons involve a special foam ball with a ping pong inside, enabling players to listen to the sound of the ball, while playing on a tactile court.

After building up some confidence over eight months, Wesley enrolled Marguerite and one other, Siobhan Kelly, into a friendly international blind tennis tournament in Poland.

Setting out to win at least one match each, Marguerite smashed all expectations, winning her first two games, and heading into the semi-final where she narrowly lost out.

“Her family were massively proud, and it meant the world to her,” Wesley said of her third-place podium finish, where she came back from 3-1 down, to beat a former champion 4-3 in the third-place play-off.

Marguerite said that the win has “lifted her out of a slump” and the goal now is to place well in the National Championships in Ireland in March, with the aim of getting her hands on an Irish shirt.

“I have set myself a goal, but I still have a long way to go,” the former teacher concluded.