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Tag Archives: Athlete


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Death of Oliver St. John Gogarty, Poet, Author, Athlete & Politician

Oliver Joseph St. John Gogarty, Irish poet, author, otolaryngologist, athlete, politician, and well-known conversationalist, dies in New York City on September 22, 1957. He serves as the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce‘s novel Ulysses.

Gogarty is born on August 17, 1878, in Rutland Square, Dublin. In 1887, his father dies of a burst appendix, and he is sent to Mungret College, a boarding school near Limerick. He is unhappy in his new school, and the following year he transfers to Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, England, which he likes little better, later referring to it as “a religious jail.” He returns to Ireland in 1896 and boards at Clongowes Wood College while studying for examinations with the Royal University of Ireland. In 1898, he switches to the medical school at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), having failed eight of his ten examinations at the Royal.

A serious interest in poetry and literature begins to manifest itself during his years at TCD. In 1900, he makes the acquaintance of W. B. Yeats and George Moore and begins to frequent Dublin literary circles. In 1904 and 1905 he publishes several short poems in the London publication The Venture and in John Eglinton‘s journal Dana. His name also appears in print as the renegade priest Fr. Oliver Gogarty in George Moore’s 1905 novel The Lake.

In 1905, Gogarty becomes one of the founding members of Arthur Griffith‘s Sinn Féin, a non-violent political movement with a plan for Irish autonomy modeled after the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy.

In July 1907, his first son, Oliver Duane Odysseus Gogarty, is born, and in autumn of that year he leaves for Vienna to finish the practical phase of his medical training. Returning to Dublin in 1908, he secures a post at Richmond Hospital, and shortly afterward purchases a house in Ely Place opposite George Moore. Three years later, he joins the staff of the Meath Hospital and remains there for the remainder of his medical career.

As a Sinn Féiner during the Irish War of Independence, Gogarty participates in a variety of anti-Black and Tan schemes, allowing his home to be used as a safe house and transporting disguised Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers in his car. Following the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, he sides with the pro-Treaty government and is made a Free State Senator. He remains a senator until the abolition of the Seanad in 1936, during which time he identifies with none of the existing political parties and votes according to his own whims.

Gogarty maintains close friendships with many of the Dublin literati and continues to write poetry in the midst of his political and professional duties. He also tries his hand at playwriting, producing a slum drama in 1917 under the pseudonym “Alpha and Omega,” and two comedies in 1919 under the pseudonym “Gideon Ouseley,” all three of which are performed at the Abbey Theatre. He devotes less energy to his medical practice and more to his writing during the twenties and thirties.

With the onset of World War II, Gogarty attempts to enlist in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) as a doctor. He is denied on grounds of age. He then departs in September 1939 for an extended lecture tour in the United States, leaving his wife to manage Renvyle House, which has since been rebuilt as a hotel. When his return to Ireland is delayed by the war, he applies for American citizenship and eventually decides to reside permanently in the United States. Though he regularly sends letters, funds, and care-packages to his family and returns home for occasional holiday visits, he never again lives in Ireland for any extended length of time.

Gogarty suffers from heart complaints during the last few years of his life, and in September 1957 he collapses in the street on his way to dinner. He dies on September 22, 1957. His body is flown home to Ireland and buried in Cartron Church, Moyard, near Renvyle, County Galway.

(Pictured: 1911 portrait of Oliver St. John Gogarty painted by Sir William Orpen, currently housed at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland)


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Death of Johnny Hayes, Member of the Irish American Athletic Club

John Joseph Hayes, an American athlete and a member of the Irish American Athletic Club, dies on August 25, 1965, in Englewood, New Jersey. He is the winner of the men’s marathon race at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. His Olympic victory contributes to the early growth of long-distance running and marathoning in the United States.

Born in New York City on April 10, 1886, to a family of Irish emigrants from Nenagh, County Tipperary, Hayes is probably best known for winning the controversial marathon race at the London Olympics. He is one of only three male American athletes to win the Olympic Marathon, the other two being Thomas Hicks in 1904 and  Frank Shorter in 1972.

In 1905, Hayes joins Bloomingdale Brothers as an assistant to the manager of the sporting goods department. At night, he trains on a cinder track on the roof of the Bloomingdale’s building in New York. He is promoted to manager of the department after returning from his Olympic victory.

Hayes starts his athletics career with a fifth-place finish at the 1906 Boston Marathon, running for the St. Bartholemew Athletic Club in a time of 2:55:38. He improves on that the following year by finishing third in Boston with a time of 2:30:38 and winning the inaugural Yonkers Marathon. In 1908, he finishes second, 21 seconds behind Thomas Morrissey in the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:26:04 and thus qualifies for the Olympic Games held in London that same year.

The British Olympic Association wants to start the race in front of Windsor Castle and finish in front of the royal reviewing stand at the White City Stadium. As a result, the distance is 26 miles and 385 yards (42.195 km). It takes until 1921 for the IAAF to codify that distance as the official length of the marathon. Prior to this, races are usually about 25 miles (40 km).

At the race itself, Dorando Pietri from Italy is the first to enter the stadium. But Pietri has depleted himself to open a more than 10 minute lead over the field and is suffering extreme fatigue and dehydration. When he enters the stadium, he takes the wrong path, and when umpires redirect him, he falls down for the first time. He gets up with their help in front of 75,000 spectators.

Pietri falls four more times, and each time, the umpires help him up. He manages to finish the race first, with a time of 2 hours, 54 minutes, 46 seconds. During all these stumbles and the direct aid from the officials, Hayes has now entered the stadium, finishing the race second, with a time of 2 hours, 55 minutes, 18 seconds.

Pietri is disqualified after the U.S. officials file a protest. Despite the official result, Pietri achieves much more fame than Hayes when Queen Alexandra awards him a special silver cup.

All of the Olympic officials are British, and the Pietri incident joins a list of other controversial calls in the 1908 Olympics, prompting the International Olympic Committee to start appointing judges from a wide variety of countries instead of only the host country.

After the dramatic Olympic battle between Pietri and Hayes, public interest is such that a match race is organized by professional promoters in November 1908 at Madison Square Garden. Pietri wins the race by 75 yards. A second match race is held on March 15, 1909, and again Pietri wins. Both Pietri and Hayes turn professional after the Olympics and achieve great fame.

Hayes is a trainer for the U.S. team for the 1912 Summer Olympics. He later teaches physical education and is a food broker. Hayes dies on August 25, 1965, in Englewood, New Jersey.

The Shore Athletic Club of New Jersey (Shore AC) holds the Johnny Hayes collection as lifetime trustees. Included in the collection are numerous trophies, as well as the 1908 Olympic gold medal for the marathon. This represents the first Olympic gold medal to be won at the modern marathon distance of 26 miles, 385 yards.

Hayes is a guest on the television show I’ve Got a Secret as one of five former Olympic champions, which airs on October 13, 1954.

In 2002, three statues honoring Olympic champions with links to Nenagh, Matt McGrath, Johnny Hayes and Bob Tisdall, are unveiled in front of the Nenagh Courthouse.


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Birth of William Robbins, Member of the Irish American Athletic Club

William Corbett Robbins, an American athlete and a member of the Irish American Athletic Club, is born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on August 9, 1885. In 1908, he is involved in a controversial race in the final of the Men’s 400 metres and is later part of a team which breaks the world’s record for the one mile relay.

Robbins advances to the finals in the 400 metres race at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, winning his preliminary heat with a time of 50.4 seconds and his semifinal in 49.0 seconds. In the first running of the final race, he finishes in front. However, teammate John Carpenter is disqualified after being accused of obstructing British runner Wyndham Halswelle, and the race is ordered to be repeated without Carpenter. Robbins and fellow American John Taylor refuse to compete in the second final in protest of Carpenter’s disqualification. Halswelle runs the race alone and is presented with the Gold medal. This race is the only case of a walkover in Olympic history.

According to Robbins’ 1910 trading card, he is “one of the best quarter-milers in the United States. He was… (a) Cornell University student, and first came to prominence by the part he played in the 400-meter race held at London in 1908. ‘Yank,’ as he (was) called by his team mates, ran the first 300 yards at such a clip that it ‘pulled the great Halswell’s cork,’ the later finishing in third place. Robbins won the Metropolitan Amateur Athletic Union quarter-mile championship in September 1909, and two weeks later captured the Canadian quarter-mile title, running the distance in the great time of 48 4/5 seconds.”

At the Amateur Athletic Union metropolitan championships held at Travers Island in 1909, Robbins is part of the Irish American Athletic Club’s four-man relay team that breaks the world’s record for the one mile relay, with a time of 3 minutes 20 2/5 seconds. The other three men on the record-breaking team were C.S. Cassara, James Rosenberger, and Melvin Sheppard.

Robbins dies on July 30, 1962.

(Pictured: William C. Robbins, wearing the 1908 U.S. Olympic team shirt, from the 1910 Mecca Cigarettes Champion Athlete & Prize Fighter Series trading card)


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Mary Peters Becomes First Irish Woman to Win an Olympic Gold Medal

Lady Mary Elizabeth Peters, LG, CH, DBE, Northern Irish former athlete and athletics administrator, wins the women’s pentathlon on September 3, 1972, at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, becoming the first Irish woman to win an Olympic Gold medal.

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.

Peters establishes a charitable Sports Trust in 1975 (now known as the Mary Peters Trust) to support talented young sportsmen and -women, both able-bodied and disabled, from across Northern Ireland in a financial and advisory capacity. The trust has made a large number of awards and has a list of well-known alumni that includes Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy, Jonathan Rea, Darren Clarke, David Humphreys, Bethany Firth, Ryan Burnett, Carl Frampton, Paddy Barnes, Michael Conlan, Kelly Gallagher, and Michael McKillop.

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.

Peters now lives in Derriaghy, within the Lisburn and Castlereagh district, just outside Belfast.