Limerick’s Liam Beville turning setbacks into world-class success

Limerick’s Liam Beville is a proud Sodacake turning setbacks into world-class success

Liam Beville, a proud Thomondgate Sodacake, shares his story from setbacks to determination and world-class success 

By Cian Reinhardt

When Liam Beville reflects on his life, he can look back at world records, a place in the Guinness Book of Records, being ranked the world’s number one in his category, but the proud Sodacake believes that “powerlifting is the vehicle… But you need to know the story”.

Liam is known to many for overcoming adversity following a hit-and-run accident in 1983, going on to become a world-record-setting power-lifter and disability activist, but the Limerick man believes it was his upbringing in Thomondgate which set him up to overcome the challenges presented to him in life.

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Growing up at 73 High Road, Thomondgate, what is now the site of De Valera Park, he says it was a “tough environment”, saying, “ We didn’t have indoor plumbing. We had an outhouse; it was really Dickensian that we grew up in. But we grew up honest, we grew up tough, and everyone knew my family.”

His family history is deeply rooted in Limerick itself, with connections to the historic Clancy fishing families and generations of local sporting tradition. His father was a co-founder and first captain of Thomond RFC, while his uncle Toddy Clancy helped found St Mary’s RFC.

Liam‘s siblings, who have since sadly passed, were Michael and Margarette, both of whom had Down Syndrome, and his sister Christine, who contracted Polio, which saw her spend some time in hospital, with the Limerick man reflecting on the difference in facilities available now, noting his sister had to spend time in Croom Hospital at the time. He noted how seeing his family overcome during those times set him up for his mindset in the future: “That’s where the Sodacake comes in. That’s the way we grew up, we didn’t talk about obstacles. We just got over them.”

Liam’s life would be forever altered on one summer’s night in 1983, at 18-years-old finished his Leaving Cert and was working in his first job, which he loved. Liam was on a night out with his friends at the Greenhills. Walking home after the night out, everything changed for him.

“We all walked home back then, because no one had money for cabs, and I don’t think they, they even had enough cabs anyway,” Liam says, continuing, “The nightclub would empty and everyone would walk home. We were going through Caherdavin, and we were on the footpath, and we were talking away. My friend Brian was alongside me, and then all of a sudden we could hear the roar of engines. Just screeching. 

“I said, ‘Jesus, there’s something happening,’ and before you could think, we saw the car just looming at us, myself and Brian. I managed to push Brian out of the way, and in my head I was going to dive. I pushed him to the left, and in my head I was going to dive to the right. The car was just moving too fast – it was estimated to be going at 60 miles an hour – And it hit me. It hit me on the legs, but what saved me was that my feet weren’t planted on the ground.

“Spending some time in hospital and the majority of his 18th year in a cast, Liam reflects on his theme-tune for that year being “Cruel Summer” by Bananarama, wheelchair-bound and being wheeled around by his brother, he remembers being stopped by an elderly man who asked what happened to him, when the response was, “You were lucky,” Liam asked, “How could I be lucky? I’m 18… I’ll never play rugby again. I’ll never run again. I’ll never do anything again!”

More than four decades later, Liam’s perspective on that moment has changed, saying, “Not only was I lucky, but I was actually blessed.” The physical consequences would remain with him permanently, but what stands out listening to him now is not bitterness but that perspective.

It was 1984 when Liam first stepped into a gym, saying he had been on crutches for some time and developed his upperbody strength, noting the underarm crutches “were like parallel bars, I never had to put my feet on the ground”. 

Saying he “became very capable”, making his way quickly about, coming up and down stairs, saying, “That’s what happens when you’re young. You adapt.” Seeing his arms and triceps develop, Liam said he was going to try something at the gym. When he saw Limerick’s Jimmy Butler at the gym, who picked up the heaviest dumbbells in the building and started to press them, his jaw dropped, saying, “I said, ‘Jesus, this is fantastic,’ and years later, we’re the best of friends.”

Moving onto a new gym, Johnny Bullman’s in 1985, he was asked one day to take part in a powerlifting competition, “He told me he was trying to get a team together, he pulls out a sheet of paper, he sets up a bar for a deadlift and asks me to do a deadlift, and I say, ‘Oh I’ve never done a deadlift before, what is it?’ so he shows me, and I ended up doing about 190 kilos.”

He told I Love Limerick, “ This competition was in 1986. It was my very first competition 40 years ago, and this is the anniversary of that competition. So I just got bit by the bug, and I found something I liked doing, something I was good at, and I never looked back really.”

Reflecting on his journey from that faithful night in 1983, Liam said, “It’s only looking back at it now; he was right. Not only was I lucky, but I was actually blessed. I don’t mean just to survive because of what comes later. But I mean, because my life now, everything I’ve achieved, I’m looking back and I’m 61 years of age now; if that never happened, I wouldn’t have achieved anything. I’d just be like everyone else and in the same job. Just doing your 9:00 to 5:00, get on, get married, have kids. But everything I’ve done, and my wife had to remind me, is because I’m the type of person that keeps going and achieving, and achieving, achieving. It’s all about achieving. I’m trying to prove that I’m not disabled. I never admitted that I was disabled, but I am admitting it now.” 

While setting one of his number of records, Liam explains he was approached by somebody from the Guinness World Records who said, “You know, that’s the heaviest deadlift ever done by someone in an MP4 category. It’s a disability category,” to which Liam replied, “Yeah, it is. That’s another achievement. That’s another feather under my cap.”

Perhaps the most revealing part of Beville’s story concerns not the weights he lifted but the way he viewed himself. For decades, despite living with permanent disability caused by the accident, he simply refused to acknowledge it publicly. “I wouldn’t even admit to myself… let alone tell you,” he said, even trying to conceal it during those years, saying, “I used to practise my walk because I have a limp… No one knew. I would go in, compete, and they just thought they were competing against another able-bodied athlete.”

His achievements, as detailed in his professional profile, were earned in able-bodied competition. He represented Ireland internationally and established himself as one of the country’s outstanding deadlifters. His story has a recurring theme: overcoming setbacks, describing them differently to most people; challenges became motivation, and doubts became fuel. 

“When someone said, ‘You can’t do it,’ I did it,” Liam said. He said that when he took a break from powerlifting and wanted to revisit his records, the numbers weren’t accurate, but with the lack of documentation, he had to prove it again: “I just said, ‘I’ll go out and do something exceptional.'”

That mentality appears deeply rooted in his upbringing through his family in Thomondgate, saying, “It is a superpower that I had to realise only of recent that this is the way I’ve always done it.” Despite this success and mindset, he speaks clearly about humility, saying he isn’t “a Muhammad Ali type,” saying, “I didn’t get up and roar and shout that I’m the greatest. I think because my father was a humble man, I learned how to be humble as well.”

His 310-kilogram deadlift at 75 kilograms bodyweight in international competition in 1992 equated to 220 Wilks points, a benchmark that remains central to discussions of Irish pound-for-pound lifting. He would go on to hold six world records across four weight divisions as well as achieving the Guinness World Record for the heaviest conventional deadlift in the MP4 disability category.

In recent years, public recognition has accelerated, becoming more than the records; he has received a letter of recognition and commendation from the President of Ireland, civic recognition from Dublin and Limerick, become a brand ambassador for Disability Inclusion Ireland and West Limerick Sports Complex, and serves as a judge for the 2026 Active Disability Services Awards.

Yet he insists the sporting achievements alone are not the main focus: “The biggest honour,” he says of the presidential recognition, “was being told what you’ve done goes beyond the nicheness of the sport. It goes beyond sport. It becomes a human achievement.”

For years he focused on numbers, records and rankings; his message now is more about the story: “It becomes a human interest story, and it’s what I’ve been trying to say for the past year to people that, you know, powerlifting is the vehicle that got me here. But you need to know the story because even I didn’t even believe the story because I wouldn’t admit it to myself.”

To share his story, he has written a book, Unbroken: The Liam Beville Story, which is currently being reviewed by publishers. Today, Beville is an advocate as much as an athlete; speaking at disability conferences and engaging in inclusion work has changed his relationship with his own experiences.

Speaking about the memoir, he said, “It’s not a book about powerlifting. It’s not a book about achievements. It’s about being in the face of adversity, just to rise. It’s just getting on with things really. And when I got on with things, really got on with them. I achieved. I super achieved. It’s something that I would have shied away from talking about.” 

“I am finding my voice now,” he said, adding, “Whatever I’m putting into this, I’m getting it back tenfold. It means the world to me.”

Reflecting on the four decades, from an 18-year-old recovering from catastrophic injuries, to a world record holder, to an advocate and author, Liam’s story echoes the distinct idea of a Sodacake story: resiliency, humility, endurance, and giving back.

You can keep up to date with all of Liam’s news and stories on his website.