At Villanova, Carroll runs a sub-four-minute mile and in 1964, is the anchor for the team which breaks the 4 x 880-yard relay World Record. In the same year, he also sets the European Indoor record for the 880-yards and competes in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, in the Men’s 800 metres finishing just outside of the qualifying places in heat 5 of the first round with a time of 1:51.1. When running against Bill Crothers in 1964, Sports Illustrated describes him as “one of the best middle-distance runners in the world.”
Carroll represents Ireland in the 400 metres (time: 46.8) and the 800 metres (time: 1:49) in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and continues to win national championships, fourteen in total. He wins a bronze medal in the 800m at the 1969 European Indoor Games in Belgrade.
In 1972, Carroll becomes the spokesman for the Dublin Corporation, now known as Dublin City Council, a post he holds until 1996, when he joins the Dublin Chamber of Commerce as its chief executive.
In 1980, Carroll leads a group which approaches the Business Houses Athletic Association and the Dublin Corporation with the idea for the Dublin Marathon. He is also among the 2,100 people who compete in the race that year. The winner of the Marathon receives the Noel Carroll Memorial Trophy presented each year by one of Carroll’s children.
Carroll dies on October 23, 1998, after suffering a heart attack while training at University College Dublin (UCD). In 2008, his four children take part in the Dublin Marathon to raise money for the Noel Carroll Building, the headquarters of a project in Kolkata, India, run by GOAL, a charity for which Carroll had served as the chairman.
Carroll’s grandson is the Irish rugby international player, Jordi Murphy.
Peters is born on July 6, 1939, in Halewood, Lancashire, England, later living at 5 Mere Avenue in Alkrington, where she goes to primary school. She moves to Ballymena (and later Belfast) at the age of eleven when her father’s job is relocated to Northern Ireland. As a teenager, her father encourages her athletic career by building her home practice facilities as birthday gifts. She qualifies as a teacher and works while training.
After Ballymena, the family moves to Portadown where she attends Portadown College. The headmaster, Donald Woodman, and the PE teacher, Kenneth McClelland, introduce her to athletics, McClelland being her first coach. She is head girl of the school in 1956.
At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, competing for Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Peters wins the gold medal in the women’s pentathlon. She had finished 4th in 1964 and 9th in 1968. To win the gold medal, she narrowly beats the local favourite, West Germany’s Heide Rosendahl, by 10 points, setting a world record score. After her victory, death threats are phoned into the BBC: “Mary Peters is a Protestant and has won a medal for Britain. An attempt will be made on her life, and it will be blamed on the IRA … Her home will be going up in the near future.” But Peters insists she will return home to Belfast. She is greeted by fans and a band at the airport and paraded through the city streets but is not allowed back in her flat for three months. Turning down jobs in the United States and Australia, where her father lives, she insists on remaining in Northern Ireland.
In 1972, Peters wins the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award: “Peters, a 33-year-old secretary from Belfast, won Britain’s only athletics gold at the Munich Olympics. The pentathlon competition was decided on the final event, the 200m, and Peters claimed the title by one-tenth of a second.”
She represents Northern Ireland at every Commonwealth Games between 1958 and 1974. In these games she wins two gold medals for the pentathlon, plus a gold and silver medal for the shot put.
In May 2001, following her athletic career, Peters becomes a Trustee of The Outward Bound Trust and is Vice-President of the Northern Ireland Outward Bound Association. She is also Patron of Springhill Hospice in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
Peters is appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to athletics in the 1973 New Year Honours. For services to sport, she is promoted in the same Order to Commander (CBE) in the 1990 Birthday Honours and again to Dame Commander (DBE) in the 2000 Birthday Honours. In the 2015 New Year Honours, she is awarded as Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH), also for services to sport and the community in Northern Ireland, and in 2017, she is made a Dame of the Order of Saint John (DStJ). She is appointed a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter (LG) on February 27, 2019, and therefore granted the title Lady. She represents the Order at the 2023 coronation.
Northern Ireland’s premier athletics track, on the outskirts of Belfast, is named after Peters. A statue of her stands within it.
In April 2009, Peters is named the Lord Lieutenant of the City of Belfast; she retires from the post in 2014, being succeeded by Fionnuala Jay-O’Boyle. She is a Freeman of the Cities of Lisburn and Belfast.
In field hockey, Kyle gains 58 Irish caps as well as representing three of the four Irish provinces (Leinster, Munster and Ulster) at different stages of her career. She is named in the World All Star team in 1953 and 1959. She is also a competitor in tennis, swimming, sailing and cricket and works as a coach. She is chair of Coaching NI. In 2006, she is awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of the University (DUniv) from the University of Ulster.
Kyle is awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2006 Coaching Awards in London in recognition of her work with athletes at the Ballymena and Antrim Athletics Club. Earlier in 2006 she is one of 10 players who are initially installed into Irish hockey’s Hall of Fame. She is appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.
seamus dubhghaill 