{"id":773405,"date":"2026-09-17T07:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T07:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/773405\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T07:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T07:56:15","slug":"belfast-brothers-cycling-3800-miles-across-usa-to-fund-ms-research-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/773405\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfast brothers cycling 3,800 miles across USA to fund MS research \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Belfast<\/a> brothers are weeks away from completing a 3,800 mile cycle across the United States to fund multiple sclerosis research.<\/p>\n

Michael O\u2019Hare (58), who now lives in New York, set out on the punishing journey across mountains, plains and 15 states from the west coast at Portland, Oregon on August 20.<\/p>\n

Averaging around 88 miles a day, he aims to reach the east coast finish of Portland, Maine, on October 6.<\/p>\n

Joining him in the central state of Minnesota this week, his brother Eamonn is also taking on the remaining 1,500 miles to the finish.<\/p>\n

\"BBC<\/a>\"Derry<\/a><\/p>\n

The challenge is all for their brother Malachy (61)<\/a> who has lived with multiple sclerosis (MS) for the last 40 years, with around $120,000 (\u00a390,000) raised to directly fund research.<\/p>\n

\"MalachyMalachy O’Hare (seated) who has lived with MS for 40 years, pictured with his brothers Michael (left) and Eamonn (right). <\/p>\n

Speaking to The Irish News, Eamonn (62) said Michael\u2019s experience on the road had been \u201chorrific\u201d so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cA real s**t show. Only two days rest in last three weeks and lots of bad weather, particularly headwinds,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Eamonn, who runs a business in London and Spain, admits he has not had much time for training, but hopes with that years of endurance cycling experience will help him to \u201cpunch through\u201d.<\/p>\n

Describing the struggle of his brother Mal\u2019s life with MS, he said that 40 years ago he had just won the All Ireland uni freshers GAA championships with Queen\u2019s University when he started to notice tingling in his legs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the start. Now he is bed ridden and has not walked for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael, who has recently retired as head of HR with cosmetics firm Est\u00e9e Lauder, adds: \u201cPeople like to dramatise this cycle challenge, but if you suffer with MS as long as my brother has.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that time he\u2019s built and sold a business, raised two incredible kids. It\u2019s hard to watch this happen to your older brother over time, but I\u2019ve never met anybody who is more upbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

From a large family of seven children in Andersonstown, they are the sons of the late Belfast businessman Hugh O\u2019Hare and mother Margaret who was one of nine killed in 1972 during the IRA Bloody Friday bombings.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve read a lot about trauma over the years. Growing up in Belfast during the Troubles wasn\u2019t exactly a fun time,\u201d Michael said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut our family have done well in terms of our career success, sometimes pretty extraordinary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all very close and a lot of that is because of what happened back in the 1970s. We\u2019ve come out of it in a very connected and positive way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s made us all over achievers if anything else. So I think if you can handle that sort of stuff, you can handle this quite easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MalachyMalachy O’Hare pictured centre as a child, with his brothers Michael and Eamonn on either side. Also pictured are his late parents Hugh and Margaret. <\/p>\n

Michael and Eamonn\u2019s next day of cycling will cover around 120 miles, taking them from Minnesota into Wisconsin and along the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m about 2,200 miles in, but who\u2019s counting,\u201d Michael says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re long days, so I\u2019m definitely tired. The first week will be tough for my brother, but your body gets to the stage where it accepts it\u2019s going to be abused every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not creaking out of bed in the morning like I was at the start.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in the US a long time, but I don\u2019t think I really appreciated the size and vastness of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go through the agricultural basin of the United States you see corn fields for miles and there\u2019s places like the Badlands in South Dakota which most Americans never get to see which are just incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

With supporters able to track their journey live online, the brothers have pledged to match all donations<\/a> dollar for dollar, with the money going to an award winning MS researcher from the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe 3,800 mile cycle will take 48 days and pass through 15 states. \"MichaelMichael O’Hare on a break outside Yellowstone National Park. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Belfast brothers are weeks away from completing a 3,800 mile cycle across the United States to fund…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[1334,255088,4985,41499,60649,28513,101,56,54,55,659,25888],"class_list":["post-773405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-belfast","tag-bloody-friday","tag-cycling","tag-fundraiser","tag-health-and-wellbeing","tag-ms","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-usa","tag-west-belfast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}