From Wicklow to the Windy City: Roisin Treacy

Fourth-year Roisin Treacy didn’t always want to be a collegiate runner.

It was her mother Jo, a former sprinter, who Treacy said got her involved in running when she was 12. 

“I didn’t like it at all at first honestly,” Treacy said. “But once I started training and I saw the improvements, I just really enjoyed it and kept going back to it.”

Treacy, who’s from the village of Ashford in Wicklow County, Ireland, got her start in athletics competing in tetrathlons — a four-sport marathon consisting of cross country, swimming, horseback riding and pistol and rifle shooting. Treacy’s competitions had a heavy focus on running in the outdoor steeplechase event.

Steeplechase is a 1500m-3000m event where competitors jump over a total of 35 hurdles — 28 of which are fixed on the track and the other five over a pit of water racers must cross through. 

It’s also the event that helped Treacy receive her first college offers. After placing first in 1500 steeplechase races in provincial and national competitions, she earned bronze twice at international competitions between Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales.  

Following her success in Ireland, Treacy drafted a list of her personal bests in a curriculum vitae to send off to U.S. schools she was interested in. At the top of Treacy’s list was Adams State University due to the success of twins Eilish and Roisin Flanagan, two Irish runners who attended the school. 

Seeing their success, Treacy believed she could improve immensely there, so she reached out to the running program at Adams State and learned they were equally interested in her joining the team. 

Treacy committed to Adams State and moved to Alamosa, Colo. for her first season, but she quickly realized Adams State wasn’t for her. Treacy, along with all the other first-years, couldn’t compete due to Colorado’s high altitudes which could lead to runners getting altitude sickness that can make them dizzy, tired, nauseous, and in serious cases, place them in a coma. 

She also said she felt the coach prioritized a performance-based system rather than caring for his athletes as people.

Her breaking point was at the end of her first year, when the head coach called her into his office with an ultimatum. If Treacy didn’t reach a certain time marker in the 3K steeplechase after the season concluded, her scholarship would be taken away. Treacy said she had never run a steeplechase at this distance before. 

Treacy returned to Ireland after her first year at Adams State and said she considered not returning to the U.S. to continue running.

“I honestly didn’t know if I was going back to the U.S.,” Treacy said. “Like maybe I want to stay in Ireland, but once [Loyola head coach] Gavin [Kennedy] reached out and I heard he was Irish as well, I was like, ‘Okay, this guy might actually look after me.’”

Treacy visited Loyola for the first time in June 2022 to see the campus and said she was blown away by the athletic facilities and academics, convincing her to transfer to Rogers Park. 

Since joining the Ramblers, Treacy has found great success, especially in the 2024-25 season. She was one of the four Ramblers to cross the finish line together to win the 6K at the Atlantic 10 Cross Country Championships — a moment she recalled as her favorite at Loyola.

“[Coach Kennedy] wanted us to race in the pack like we do in training,” Treacy said. “We did that for the whole race and it felt exactly like a workout — it was actually amazing. We were talking to each other the whole way round, and it was really cool to cross the line together.”

Treacy and the Ramblers wrapped up their indoor track season March 1 at the A10 championships, where Treacy had her best performance of the season — closing out with a second place finish in the 3000m, an improvement on her sixth place finish the year before. 

Treacy said she was proud of her performance as she led on the final lap before being overtaken by LaSalle’s Gwenno Goode, who also won the 3K outdoor steeplechase last spring. 

Treacy is now turning her attention to her final outdoor track season, as she sets her eyes on the Loyola 3K steeplechase record of 10:34.69 set by Alana Crisman in 2003. Treacy’s time of 10:42.53 is second in Loyola’s record books, and she’ll have a chance to break it in May at the NCAA West Preliminaries in College Station, Texas.