Anatomy and Physiology

Portobello Institute graduate and founder of Rebound Injury Clinic, Shannon Byrne has returned to Portobello as a lecturing assistant on the BSc in Sports Therapy.

Shannon established and runs Rebound Injury Clinic based in BeDo7 Fitness‘ purpose-built Sports Therapy room.

Throughout her education journey she has achieved an Honors Degree (Bachelor of Science) in Sports Therapy, obtained from London Metropolitan University in 2020 through Portobello Institute.

She is also a member of the Society of Sports Therapists and the Irish Massage Therapy Association.

Shannon brings her previous private practice experience where she treated anyone from athletes to desk workers, young and old, for a wide range of injuries to her role at Portobello.

As well as this, she has worked pitch-side with football teams, volunteered as a therapist at Iron Man events and worked with world championship level dancers with a focus on improving flexibility and injury prevention.

Shannon’s experience and qualification mean she has the knowledge, ability and skills to provide immediate care of injuries through assessment, treatment and rehabilitation.

She brings her past experience as a student at Portobello, her practical pitch-side experience and her academic knowledge to lecturing at Portobello Institute.

After completing her Leaving Certificate, she did a PLC in Coláiste Íde in physiotherapy. Thanks to her superb results, she was able to go straight into the second year of our Sports Therapy degree.

“I got all distinctions in that so I was delighted. That led me to Portobello where I started in the second year. Because of my results, they let me bypass the first year which would have been a foundation year. Did the two years then in order to get the undergrad degree and I finished up in May of last year.”

Before going to Coláiste Íde, Shannon developed a keen interest in sports science and the impact of injury on the body.

“I was a dancer myself in multiple different styles. It always led to injuries here and there.”

However, her sister also helped to develop that interest.

“I have a little sister who has special needs as well, so she underwent an awful lot of physiotherapy and speech and language therapy in her early years.

“We were told she’d never walk or talk and now she’s at stage school singing and dancing and acting. So when you see it first-hand it’s definitely more inspiring to get into it.”

But it was more so the sports side that Shannon wanted to get into and in October of last year, just five short months after finishing her Bachelor’s degree in Portobello, she opened up her own injury clinic.

“Usually you’d go work somewhere first. But what happened for me was that we were in lockdown, and I just had an idea.

“Back in March 2020 when lockdown kicked in, we had one business module, a hypothetical what would you do if you opened your own business and what you needed to know. I said I’d do it on a clinic.

“My sister does digital marketing so I asked her what would I need. She made up a logo. It was kind of boredom. My sister kept saying ‘I made that logo and it’s so nice and it’s not going anywhere’.

“Then I was off on annual leave and a guy I know years who owns a gym, he plays for Dublin GAA, gave me a ring and asked was I qualified yet and I said yes.

“He said he had a room in the back of the gym and he had this idea of opening an injury clinic in the gym and having a person on-site so that if someone in the gym gets injured we can have somebody to send them to.

“Eventually I said why not, let’s go for it. If we can do it in the middle of a pandemic you can do it outside of a pandemic. We painted the room ourselves and we opened.”

Now, in addition to running her own clinic, Shannon will be helping out her former thesis supervisor, Cathal Brady, to lecture on the very degree she gained at Portobello in 2020.

The role allows Shannon to pass on the useful knowledge she has picked up both inside and out of Portobello.

“I’m really excited about going in and passing on what I’ve learned. Cathal was an excellent lecturer when I was there and was really helpful.”

One of the things that Shannon really enjoyed about her time in Portobello was how personable it was and that is something she is looking forward to being part of again.

“I have a twin sister who went to a different college and she was just a number in a class.

“In Portobello I think everyone is much more close-knit which I loved. Putting names to people instead of numbers. So I’m really looking forward to being able to make it a better experience for other students and pass on what I learned,” she said.