Pana Jaywalking Was Key for Heffernan

16th Aug 2013

World Champion Rob Heffernan’s underlying talent may have come from Cork’s jaywalking tradition.

That’s the view of most punters on Pana this week. Heffernan is well known to older bus and taxi drivers who remember his daring dashes across Patrick Street in the late eighties long before he became Cork’s second World Champion earlier this week.
 

Rob Heffernan prepares to carry something he got in Michael Guineys across the treacherous Washington Street junction

“You’d try to give him a fright by accelerating but he’d be too quick.”, said Pa Fitz, a non-racist taxi driver from Ballyvolane, “You could see he was training for something bigger cos he’d be taking the shopping off his mam, waiting for the red man to come up and trying to leg it across the road before getting knocked down. It worked every time.”

People across Cork city and county are visibly increasing their walking pace this week in the hope of getting spotted by walker coaches.
 

Heffernan being consoled by the new bus hut on Pana after narrowingly avoiding the number 8

We saw one ‘Hane checking out his gait in the reflection of a shop window on Carey’s Lane.

“I used never look in shop windows to lamp meself cos the biys’d say I was septic”, says Finbarr Waddle (32) from Ballyphehane, “now everywan is checking their own gatch hoping to get spotted”.