By John Harrington

Earlier today, the Irish Wheelchair hurling team flew out from Dublin airport on a Ryanair flight bound for The Netherlands where they’ll compete in the 2019 European Para Games Floorball International event.

The team is captained by Sligo native, Pat Carty, who was given that honour after a vote among his own team-mates.

“When I was told first I thought they were making a mistake, that it must have been (Ireland vice-captain) James McCarthy they meant was captain,” says Carty modestly.

“It's taken a while to sink in. It's a serious honour, in fairness.”

Speak to Carty for a while, and you quickly understand why his team-mates look up to him.

He’s a warm and friendly guy, but the steely determination that has helped him overcome considerable adversity is apparent too.

A talented underage footballer and hurler in his youth, his life was changed forever when he broke his back in a car accident at the age of 20.

At the time he was combining work on the family farm with night-shifts at a local bakery, and, exhausted, he fell asleep at the wheel half a mile from home.

But he’s never let his disability define him as a person and lives a full and happy life.

He’s busier at farming than ever, has a day job as a sales rep, is happily married to Edel for the past six years, and one of the best players on the highly competitive Irish wheelchair hurling circuit.

There’s a lot to admire about Carty, so you can see why his peers would look up to him.

“I suppose I do see with the younger lads on our Connacht hurling team it might be helpful for them to see someone older who has lived a bit, gotten married, drives their own car, and happy at work and all the rest,” says Carty.

“It's good to help lads. Young people are great but they be so cruel as well as caring sometimes. The whole thing is to just keep mixing and talking, mixing and talking.

“When I was in hospital I remember praying, praying, praying that I'd walk again or that I'd be well.

“I'm not walking, but I have to say I'm genuinely okay about it now.

“I love work, I love farming. There are times it would be nice to get up and be able to do an even more, but I can do everything really. I'd be a bit slow but I can do everything on the farm.

“I suppose I could have gone back to college and gotten a different job, but you have to be happy. It's not all about money, you have to be happy in what you're at too.”

Carty is often asked to visit someone who has just suffered a serious spinal injury and pass on a few words of wisdom.

But he freely admits that when he broke his own back the last thing he would have wanted was someone who had been in a wheelchair for 30 years visiting him in hospital and telling him everything would be alright.

He’s in a very good place now, but it took him some time to come to terms with the life-changing reality of the injuries he suffered.

“I remember coming home from hospital and I went up to the cattle,” said Carty.

“Things had been building up on the farm, I had been to agricultural college and I was building up cattle numbers and all of that.

“My father died when I was two and my Uncle Tom was kind of like a father to us. I remember crying when I came home and telling him to sell the cattle.

“But he kept them there, he was a great help, and we were lucky too with neighbours and other family.

“We'd be back up now with around 100 cattle and I'd be doing it myself with help from my wife Edel so we're back where we were.

“One thing that used to annoy me was that people used to say I'm glad to see you spending your money from your accident (on the farm).

“But I didn't get anything and I'm glad in a way I didn't because I just would have sat down instead of working away as hard as I could. And we do work very hard at it, in fairness.”

Despite all he has achieved with the farm and in every other area of his life, Carty has found out that some people hold tightly to certain prejudices.

“It's funny, I go to the Mart to sell and buy cattle,” he said.

“I was there a couple of months at the ring and a fella came up to me and said, 'Can you walk?' I says, 'No, I can't.

“Then, after a few minutes, he says, 'Are you farming'. I said, 'Arragh, a bit, nothing too serious'.

“Then he says, 'Well, sure, if you can't stand or walk then you're not a farmer.' It's funny how people look at you and judge you.

“Now, I genuinely didn't mind. I was kind of laughing. But I was telling a few of the other lads and they were going mad!”

Carty’s natural farmer’s strength is one of the reasons why he’s such formidable wheelchair hurler.

His background in gaelic games no doubt helped too, because from the very start he took to it like a natural.

“I think it was Denis O'Boyle who contacted me six or seven years ago,” said Carty.

“It was above in Athlone the first match I played and I just thought it was class. It was my first time to go back hurling again and it just went from that.

“It's nice to have something again that you have to be committed to. When you're playing sport you have to train, you have to be at the matches.

“25 years had gone by without me playing any sport at all so it was great to be able to do it again.”

The Irish hurlers will be very much the underdogs at this week’s Para Games Floorball International event because adjusting to a sport that differs somewhat to wheelchair hurling will be a challenge.

The sticks and balls used are different to their hurleys and sliotars, and, unlike in wheelchair hurling when you can contest for the ball in the air and palm it down with your hand, in Floorball you can’t bring the stick above the height of the wheel.

Training has gone well, though, and Carty and his team-mates are very determined to do the green jersey proud.

“Of course we are,” he said. “Some people were saying to me it'll be a nice break. I was saying, 'I'll have it harder out there! If I was at home I'd be driving around on the quad!

“We're taking it very seriously. Training has gone well and there's a really good bunch of good, fit lads there.

“We'll be giving it everything we have.

In fairness, Pat Carty doesn’t know any other way.