Cathal Brady – Inspiring Sports Therapy Students to a Fulfilling Career

Cathal Brady is currently a Sports Therapy lecturer at Portobello Institute.

Ten years ago, he was a student on the BSc (Hons) Sports Therapy degree himself. He graduated, opened his own clinic, began working with different teams and ultimately wound up coming back to the course he had studied to guide the next generation of sports therapy professionals.

Current Sports Therapy students learn how treat different injuries from someone who has been in their position and knows what to do. His student feedback is consistently excellent as Cathal makes the effort to engage his students away from the classroom.

He upholds the ethos of Portobello going the extra mile for its students having experienced that same ethos from the other side. Portobello Institute was founded on making education accessible for all students. That means being as flexible as possible with our scheduling while engaging students individually rather than just as a collective.

Our lecturers are carefully chosen based on their expertise but also their attitude towards educating students.

Sports Therapy is one of our most popular courses. Cathal has been central to building out the quality of graduates that the degree course has offered since he became a lecturer. He benefited from his own experience in education but also as an active practitioner in the industry.

He graduated in 2012 before setting up the Dunboyne Sports Injury Clinic.

Completing Portobello’s Sports Therapy degree allowed Cathal to give individual treatment from his clinic to patients who found him. He treats injured civilians, athletes of different levels and those managing chronic pain/recovering from procedures.

His Sports Therapy degree also set him up to support athletes as part of larger teams. He has a very impressive client base that spans across different sports, including rugby and GAA. He has worked with the UCD and Maynooth college teams, as well as Kilmacud Crokes and Dunboyne GAA teams.

Kilmacud Crokes and Dunboyne won the championship and league titles during the 2018 season when Cathal worked with them.

His early success in his clinic allowed him to expand. This meant bringing in other qualified sports therapy professionals. Cathal now employs qualified sports therapists and qualified physiotherapists to handle his growing client base. The greater demand has created a greater need for those educated in sports therapy.

Working with teams, running your own clinic and being a lecturer at Portobello Institute obviously isn’t easy. It requires balancing and good scheduling, but also it requires a passion and enthusiasm for what you do.

If a busy career in sports therapy is your passion, then you’ll make it work until it starts to work for you. For Cathal, that is obviously the case:

“I love helping people prevent injury or recover from injury, whether it is a team member or individual sports enthusiast,” he said.

Having someone who runs his own clinic and works with various sports teams gives Portobello’s sports therapy students a major advantage. The networking opportunities are self-evident but his experience across different codes of sport are also hugely beneficial.

Cathal has worked in sports therapy with GAA and rugby teams, while he himself is a former League of Ireland soccer player.

Actively working in sports therapy means that Cathal’s work in Portobello primarily focuses on the more hands-on modules.

“With small classes and lots of practical interaction time, we get to know each student well over three years. So when a student gets to where they want to be, their perfect job or postgraduate position, I am delighted for them. I’m proud to be part of the team that helped them get there,” he said.

Even during Covid-19, Cathal was still able to find ways that complied with all government restrictions to still teach his sports therapy classes and engage his students. That’s a direct reflection on his ability as a lecturer but also his passion for sports therapy that was honed in Portobello.

“If you enjoy your job, you will never work a day in your life,” he said.

Cathal graduated with BSc (Hons) Sports Therapy from London Metropolitan University at Portobello Institute.