{"id":494919,"date":"2026-05-20T23:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T23:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/494919\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T23:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T23:35:11","slug":"uncharted-with-ray-goggins-review-ciara-mageean-and-michael-darragh-macauley-confront-fears-of-life-and-death-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/494919\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncharted with Ray Goggins review: Ciara Mageean and Michael Darragh MacAuley confront fears of life and death \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The opening sequence would do the new James Bond movie proud, as first Ciara Mageean<\/a>, then Michael Darragh MacAuley<\/a>, skydive from a small aircraft, screaming hysterically, and begin their rapid free fall somewhere over the coast of Costa Rica.<\/p>\n

If this sheer adrenaline rush is the ultimate reminder of living in the moment, it deftly sets up episode two of Uncharted with Ray Goggins<\/b> (RT\u00c9 One, Wednesday, 9.35pm). Especially knowing what Mageean has already been through over the last year, and, it turns out, some uncharted territory for MacAuley too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t felt that rush since my last race,\u201d says Mageean, one of those being the European 1,500m title she won in June 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cEighty thousand people shouting at you in the dying minutes of a game, that is comparable to jumping out of a plane,\u201d adds MacAuley, who won eight All-Ireland football titles with Dublin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Goggins, a former special forces soldier, has a weighty reputation for taking people out of their comfort zone, and their six-day, 250km coast-to-coast journey across Costa Rica \u2013 biking, hiking and kayaking \u2013 becomes an increasingly arduous ordeal. One month\u2019s rainfall in two days helps make sure of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re doing this for their own reasons, and we\u2019ll figure out during that week what that is, the real why,\u201d says Goggins, hinting at what is to come.<\/p>\n

\"CiaranCiaran Mageean kayaking in Cosat Rica, where one month\u2019s rainfall fell in two days while filming Uncharted. <\/p>\n

Because for Mageean, Uncharted also provides some heartfelt reflection on her cancer diagnosis, at 33, this time last year. Even knowing this, and the resilience she\u2019s always displayed as an athlete, it\u2019s no less of an emotionally jarring moment, when on the second morning in, she talks openly about her experience so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do joke, I don\u2019t look like I have cancer,\u201d says Mageean, perfectly comfortable in her own humour despite holding back the tears. \u201cInitially, with the diagnosis, you think, \u2018Oh my God, am I going to die?\u2019 Me and the girls always had plans of our big 40th birthday, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Will I be there to celebrate that 40th birthday with my friends?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s nearly easier being the person who has the illness. That going to treatment is in my control. How I cope with that post-chemo slump is on me, and I know I will make it through. But it\u2019s my partner, Tommy, he has to see me feel sick. Or my parents, whose little girl is ill, and they can\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, MacAuley soon chips in with similar humour and empathy: \u201cI reckon cancer is just like the two Brits on the last lap of the Europeans to you. Just smash through them, get through the line, you\u2019ll be home and hosed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mageean and MacAuley are sweetly matched in every sense, Mageean later telling him, during one particularly brutal climb on the bike: \u201cNever mind cancer killing me, this f**king hill will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CiaraCiara Mageean, Ray Goggins and Michael Darragh MacAuley swim under a waterfall in Costa Rica. <\/p>\n

On day four, MacAuley speaks of the pulmonary fibrosis that took the life of his father back in 2012 despite three lung transplants: \u201cSo there\u2019s about a 50 per cent chance genetically of me having it as well. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s down the track for myself either at the moment, if I\u2019m being honest.\u201d <\/p>\n

He adds: \u201cIn some ways, the fear of death kind of brings us alive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Uncharted was shot at the end of January, weeks after Mageean had completed several more rounds of chemotherapy. Next month, she\u2019ll publish her book, My Greatest Race, which we can expect to feature this same searing honesty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d put off having a family for so long because I always wanted to focus on my sport,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd now I\u2019m in this position, I\u2019m like, \u2018Well, I probably won\u2019t ever have a family of my own\u2019. I could adopt, but I don\u2019t even know if I will get to.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I wanted to achieve from this journey was to be reminded of the Ciara I was before cancer became a thing for me, and it did. Every challenge was tough, but I knew that I could keep going because I\u2019m not going to stop in the middle of a tough climb and say, \u2018That\u2019s it, I give up\u2019 … I\u2019m not going to do that. That\u2019s not the person I am.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know when the end of the journey will come, but I know that sure as hell I\u2019m going to enjoy every path along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

As compelling as any 50 minutes of television you\u2019ll see all year, and a reminder perhaps that all our lives are uncharted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The opening sequence would do the new James Bond movie proud, as first Ciara Mageean, then Michael Darragh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,42328,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,215691,5,1181,7,8],"class_list":["post-494919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-ciara-mageean","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-michael-darragh-macauley","tag-news","tag-rte","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116609530229378877","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}