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Birth of Nicholas “Nicky” Rackard, Irish Hurler

Nicholas “Nicky” Rackard, Irish hurler whose league and championship career with the Wexford senior team spans seventeen years from 1940 to 1957, is born on April 28, 1922, in Killanne, County Wexford. He establishes many championship scoring records, including being the top championship goal-scorer of all time with 59 goals. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest hurlers in the history of the game.

Rackard is the eldest son of five boys and four girls born to Robert (Bob) Rackard and Anastasia Doran, who had been married in 1918. He is introduced to sport by his father who had hoped he would become a cricketer. His uncle, John Doran, won an All-Ireland medal as a Gaelic footballer with Wexford in 1918 and it is hurling and Gaelic football that Rackard develops a talent for.

Rackard plays competitive hurling as a boarder at St. Kieran’s College in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny. Here he wins back-to-back Leinster Colleges Senior Hurling Championship medals in 1938 and 1939, however, an All-Ireland medal remains elusive. He later attends University College Dublin (UCD) where he studies to be a veterinary surgeon. In all, his studies take eight years to complete because of his huge commitment to his sporting exploits.

Rackard plays his club hurling with his local Rathnure club and enjoys much success. He wins his first senior county title in 1948. It was Rathnure’s first ever championship triumph. Two years later in 1950 he captures a second county title, a victory which allows him to take over the captaincy of the county senior team for the following year. He wins his third and final county medal in 1955.

Rackard makes his debut on the inter-county scene when he is selected for the Wexford minor panel. He is just out of the minor grade when he is selected for the Wexford senior team in 1940. Over the course of the next seventeen years, he wins two All-Ireland medals as part of the Wexford hurling breakthrough in 1955 and 1956. He also wins four Leinster Senior Hurling Championship medals, one National Hurling League medal and one Leinster Senior Football Championship medal as a Gaelic footballer. He plays his last game for Wexford in August 1957.

By the late 1940s, Rackard is a regular in the full-forward line on the Leinster inter-provincial team. Success comes in the twilight of his career and he claims his sole Railway Cup medal in 1956.

Rackard’s brothers, Billy and Bobby, also experience All-Ireland success with Wexford.

In retirement from playing Rackard becomes involved in team management and coaching. It is with the Wexford senior team that he enjoys his greatest successes as a selector when he helps the team secure the 1968 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship title.

Rackard is most famous for his scoring prowess and is the all-time top championship scorer at the time of his retirement from hurling. His private life is marred by periods of excessive drinking, which had started during his university studies, and eventually develops into alcoholism. After quitting drinking completely in 1970, he travels the country as a counsellor with Alcoholics Anonymous. In an interview in The Irish Press in 1975, he details his life as a recovering alcoholic and becomes one of the first sportspeople to break the taboo of alcoholism in Ireland.

Rackard death from cancer at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin on April 10, 1976, sees a huge outpouring of grief amongst the hurling community. He is posthumously honoured by being named on the Hurling Team of the Century in 1984, however, he is sensationally omitted from the Hurling Team of the Millennium in favour of Ray Cummins. His scoring prowess has also earned him a place on the top ten list of all-time scoring greats. In 2005 the GAA further honours him by naming the Nicky Rackard Cup, the hurling competition for Division 3 teams, in his honour.

In 2006, a Wexford author, Tom Williams, writes a long-overdue biography of Rackard entitled Cuchulainn’s Son – The Story of Nickey Rackard. The same author also pens a now well-known song about Rackard many years earlier. It too is called Cuchulainn’s Son and has been recorded by various artists over the last 20 years and is a lament for the great sportsman.

In Wexford town, there is a statue to commemorate Rackard, erected in 2012.


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Death of Brendan O’Reilly, Athlete, Journalist, Actor & Singer

Brendan O’Reilly, Olympic high jumper, journalist, actor, singer-songwriter, dies in Dublin on April 1, 2001.

O’Reilly is born on May 14, 1929, in Granard, County Longford, one of six children of James P. O’Reilly, shopkeeper and musician, and Catherine O’Reilly (née Donegan). The family moves to Dublin when he is nine years old. He is educated at the Christian Brothers school in James’s Street, where he excels at Gaelic football and develops an interest in drama and music. Toward the end of his schooldays he begins to participate in athletics, particularly the high jump, and is coached by Jack Sweeney, a leading athletics coach.

Always a man of many talents and interests, after leaving school O’Reilly combines working in the insurance business with an athletics career with Donore Harriers and evening drama classes. He wins several Irish titles, including the high jump, javelin, and decathlon, and sets a national record in the high jump. In 1954 he wins the British AAA Championships high jump title, beating the Commonwealth champion into second place, and setting a championship record of 6 ft. 5 in. (1.96 m). As a result, he secures a United States athletics scholarship to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he takes a degree in liberal arts, majoring in speech and drama. While at Michigan he improves his Irish record to 6 ft. 7 in. (2.007 m). His athletic career, however, is dogged with bad luck. He is selected to compete in the high jump at the European Athletics Championships in Bern, Switzerland, in 1954 but fractures an ankle in practice and fails to advance beyond the qualifying round. Although he competes at international level for ten years (1952–62), he is unlucky to never take part in the Olympic Games. A victim of sporting politics in 1952, as an NCAA athlete he is not entitled to compete. He is selected for the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne but is unable to attend when, at the last minute, his club cannot provide the finance for him to attend. Earlier that year he wins the Big Ten Conference high jump title.

On leaving Michigan O’Reilly moves to New York City, where he embarks on an acting career with the Irish Players, but he returns to Dublin in 1959, where, after brief spells working as a teacher and for an advertising agency, he applies to Ireland’s new television station for a position. He is looking for an acting job but ends up being offered a position as a presenter, joining Teilifís Éireann in 1961 as an announcer/interviewer. His relaxed and unobtrusive style appeals to viewers and his light entertainment show, The Life of O’Reilly, is the most popular programme on Irish television in the day, eclipsing even a fledgling The Late Late Show. It is as a sports presenter and commentator, however, that O’Reilly is primarily remembered, as he becomes the face of sport on RTÉ Television for many years. He attends five Olympic Games as a broadcaster, from Mexico in 1968 to Los Angeles in 1984, commentating on athletics and gymnastics. The first presenter of RTÉ’s flagship Saturday afternoon sports programme Sports Stadium in 1984, he continues to present it over its fourteen-year life, co-presenting the final programme in December 1997. He also is the regular presenter of RTÉ’s Wimbledon Championships tennis coverage for many years, the sports results on news broadcasts on TV and radio, and Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio, as well as commentating on individual sports such as ice-skating.

Although sports presenting is a natural progression for an athlete with his talents, O’Reilly’s real love is the arts. He continues to act, playing the part of Detective Inspector Michael Roarke in the classic children’s film Flight of the Doves (1971) with Ron Moody and Willie Rushton. He is also an accomplished singer and songwriter, and writes and performs his own one-man show, Across the Spectrum, comprising his own poems and songs in 1992. As well as a book of poems, The Great Explosion (1977), he releases a number of albums and tops the charts with his own song, “The Ballad of Michael Collins,” in 1981. He has a great admiration for Michael Collins and this leads to his becoming the first non-political figure to give the oration at the annual Collins commemoration at Béal na Bláth, County Cork, in 1981. He also writes the song “Let the Nations Play” (1985), inspired by the boycotts of the Olympic games of 1980 and 1984, and the song is adopted as an anthem of the international Olympic movement.

Tall and slim in build, O’Relly is affable, modest, and self-deprecating in character. His relaxed style is no mere public affectation. He often exasperates colleagues by turning up just in time for broadcasts, and his ability to ad-lib is important in a live television environment. He once describes himself as “a champion high-jumper who could enunciate properly and keep my hair neatly combed” (The Irish Times, April 7, 2001). Despite the disappointments in his sporting career, he maintains that his other interests more than compensated. In relation to the Olympics he is quoted as saying, “If you asked me whether I’d have preferred to win a medal or have written the song, I’d honestly say I would have preferred to have written the song” (Longford Leader, April 6, 2001).

O’Reilly lives in Ranelagh, Dublin, and is married twice. He meets his first wife Linda Herbst (née Kuhl) in New York in the late 1950s. His second marriage is to Johanna Lowry. He has four children. After a lenghty illness, he dies on April 1, 2001, in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Fairview, Dublin. He is buried at Mount Venus cemetery, Rathfarnham.

(From: “O’Reilly, Brendan” by Jim Shanahan, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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Birth of Irish Sports Broadcaster Jimmy Magee

Jimmy Magee, Irish sports broadcaster known as The Memory Man, is born on January 31, 1935, in New York City. He spends over half a century in sports broadcasting, and presents radio and television coverage of the Olympic Games since 1968 and the FIFA World Cup since 1966. By the time of his retirement he is the longest-serving sports commentator in the English-speaking world.

Magee is born to Patrick (Paddy) Magee and his wife Rose (née Mackin). The family returns to Ireland shortly after his birth. He and his three siblings are subsequently raised in Cooley, County Louth. As a child he is influenced by the sports commentary of the legendary Gaelic games broadcaster Michael O’Hehir. He recalls commentating as a seven-year-old for his next-door neighbour on a variety of imaginary games that the young Magee is also playing in. He also speaks of making up his own radio commentary in a field at a young age.

After being educated locally, Magee secures a full-time clerical post with Dundalk, Newry and Greenore Railway. While still working at the Railway he begins his broadcasting career. He starts out as a reporter for the Radio Éireann programme Junior Sports Magazine. Other contributors on the programme are Jim Tunney and Peter Byrne, former football correspondent with The Irish Times. On leaving his Railway job, he presents a number of sponsored radio programmes before concentrating on sport. He is a producer, presenter and script writer for Radio Éireann’s sponsored programmes in the 1950s and 1960s.

Magee and his wife Marie are married on October 11, 1955, and have five children: Paul, a soccer player with Shamrock Rovers F.C. (winning the League of Ireland Cup in 1977), who died of motor neuron disease, in May 2008, Linda (b. 1959), June (b. 1961), Patricia (b. 1962), and Mark (b. 1970).

Magee joins Raidió Teilifís Éireann in 1956. In 1966 he covers his first World Cup for RTÉ Radio. He does likewise for the 1970 FIFA World Cup before transferring to television for the 1974 FIFA World Cup finals. In all he provides commentary at eleven World Cups – his latest commentary coming at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Magee’s column or quiz appears in every single publication of the Sunday World since the first edition in 1973.

Magee is also a staple of RTÉ’s coverage of the Olympic Games. Beginning at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, he attends the eleven subsequent Olympic games as a commentator with RTÉ. In 2012, he commentates on the boxing for RTÉ at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, including Katie Taylor‘s gold medal-winning fight. At the 2016 Summer Olympics, he provides commentary on the football.

From 1987 to 1998 Magee hosts Know Your Sport, a sports-themed quiz show, along with George Hamilton. His broadcasting career also sees him provide commentary for over 200 international football games, 30 European Cup finals, multiple Tour de France cycle races, World Athletic Championships and boxing. He also narrates numerous videos on sport in general such as The Purple and Gold, Meath Return to Glory, etc.

A freelancer, Magee works for Channel 4 in 1994 and signs for UTV in 1995 on a three-year contract where a lifetime ambition of commentating on All-Ireland Finals is achieved. He commentates on three finals in both hurling and football.

Magee launches his memoir, Memory Man, in 2012. Some of his one-liners in commentaries have become famous or infamous, what are affectionately known in the broadcasting industry as Colemanballs after the famed commentating clangers of BBC broadcaster David Coleman.

In the emotionally trying year of 1989, Magee’s mother and wife die within months of each other, Marie dying at the young age of 54.

Magee dies on September 20, 2017, after a short illness. Many tributes are made to him including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar who says, “His commentaries were legendary and based on a breadth of sporting knowledge that was peerless.” RTÉ Head of Sport Ryle Nugent says, “It’s hard to put it into words, the man meant an inordinate amount to so many people, I think he was the soundtrack to many generations.”

In 1972 Magee wins a Jacob’s Award for his radio sports commentaries. In 1989, he is the subject of a special tribute show on The Late Late Show. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the International Olympic Committee presents him with a replica of its torch.


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Death of Aengus Fanning, Journalist & Editor of the Sunday Independent

Aengus Fanning, Irish journalist and editor of the Sunday Independent from 1984 until his death, dies on January 17, 2012, following a battle with lung cancer. He is also a former editor of farming for the Irish Independent. He is listed at number 31 on a list of “most influential people” in Irish society compiled for Village magazine.

Fanning is born on April 22, 1944, in the family home at Cloonbeg Terrace, Tralee, County Kerry, the fourth child among five sons and one daughter of Arnold (‘Paddy’) Fanning, a teacher, and his wife Clara (née Connell). Originally from Rostrevor, County Down, his mother is born a Presbyterian and converts to Catholicism to marry his father, though neither is religious. His father is a noted organiser of local theatrical productions, having written a one-act play, Vigil, which is staged in the Abbey Theatre in 1929.

Fanning has a keen interest in sport, having represented Kerry in Gaelic football in his youth. He is also passionate about cricket. He also plays the clarinet, and is a jazz fan. He is a graduate of University College Cork (UCC).

In May 1964 Fanning is hired as a reporter by his uncle, James Fanning, the owner of the Midland Tribune in Birr, County Offaly, and pursues an unglamorous beat covering court sittings, local authority meetings and GAA matches. Needing a better salary to start a family, he joins Independent Newspapers (IN) in Dublin as a general reporter in May 1969, and soon after marries Mary O’Brien from Streamstown, County Offaly. They settle in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, and have three sons.

Fanning covers the Northern Ireland troubles during 1969–70, before reporting increasingly on farming matters, becoming the IN group’s agricultural correspondent in 1973, as Ireland’s European Economic Community (EEC) accession sparks a farming boom. He is made head of news analysis at the Irish Independent in 1982, improving the op-ed page and using it to advocate more market-driven economic policies.

Fanning is appointed editor of the mid-to-upmarket Sunday Independent in 1984 from. Under his leadership, the newspaper adopts what Irish newspaper historian John Horgan calls a “new emphasis on pungent opinion columns, gossip and fashion” which results in the paper overtaking its main rival, The Sunday Press. For a time, his deputy editor is journalist Anne Harris.

In a 1993 interview with Ivor Kenny in the book Talking to Ourselves, Fanning describes himself as a classical liberal who is opposed to both Ulster loyalist and Provisional Irish Republican Army terrorism. He also expresses a strong advocacy of the free market, arguing that the goal of a good newspaper is to be as commercially successful as possible:

“If three or four papers out of 15 are successful and the others are not, they might say they’re not driven by the market, they have some higher vocation: to serve the public interest or some pompous stuff like that. That’s how they feel good about themselves. Fair enough, if that’s how they want to explain the world. It’s a grand excuse for relative failure… I think we live or die by the market, it will always win through.”

Fanning recruits a number of noted writers to contribute to the newspaper, including historians Conor Cruise O’Brien and Ronan Fanning, journalists Shane Ross and Gene Kerrigan, poet Anthony Cronin and novelist Colm Tóibín. However, his editorship is not without controversy. The columns published by Eamon Dunphy and Terry Keane draw criticism. Michael Foley notes some Irish commentators criticised Fanning’s Sunday Independent, claiming the newspaper was publishing “a mix of sleaze and prurience.”

Fanning also defends the controversial Mary Ellen Synon, who calls the Paralympics games “perverse.” One of the more bizarre incidents occurs in 2001 when he is involved in a fisticuffs with a colleague at the newspaper – operations editor Campbell Spray.

Diagnosed with lung cancer in April 2011, Fanning spends his last months undergoing treatment in St. Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin, dying there on January 17, 2012, at the age of 69. His remains are cremated at Mount Jerome Crematorium.

Anne Harris, Fanning’s second wife, succeeds him as editor and lasts three years. As well as pioneering changes in the domestic print media’s role, Fanning’s Sunday Independent led Irish society’s turn towards free market hedonism, catching the public mood better than its more conventionally liberal rivals by rendering this cultural transformation in an exuberant, somewhat parodied form, and without regard for lingering post-Catholic inhibitions.


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Death of IRA Volunteer Fergal O’Hanlon

Fergal O’Hanlon (Irish: Feargal Ó hAnnluain), a volunteer in the Pearse Column of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), is killed on January 1, 1957, while taking part in an attack on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) barracks.

Born into a staunchly republican family on February 2, 1936, in Ballybay, County Monaghan, O’Hanlon is a draughtsman employed by Monaghan County Council. He is a Gaelic footballer and a keen Irish language activist. A devout Catholic, he considers becoming a priest and spends one year at the seminary in St. Macartan’s. He joins the IRA in 1956.

At the age of 20, O’Hanlon is killed on January 1, 1957, along with Seán South while taking part in an attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, during the border campaign. Several other IRA members are wounded in the botched attack. The IRA flees the scene in a dumper truck. They abandon it near the border. They leave South and O’Hanlon, both then unconscious, in a cow byre, and crossed into the Republic of Ireland on foot for help for their comrades. The wounded IRA men are treated as “car crash victims” by sympathetic staff in the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Dublin.

The events and personalities are sympathetically recalled in Dominic Behan‘s ballad “The Patriot Game.” O’Hanlon is mentioned in the song “Seán South of Garryowen” (“Brave Hanlon by his side”).

O’Hanlon’s mother remains firmly committed to the IRA and is hurt by the suggestion that there was an alternative to IRA activity or that her son was anything other than an Irish hero.

A marble monument now stands at the spot where South and O’Hanlon lost their lives. An annual lecture has been held in memory of O’Hanlon since 1982, and approximately 500 people attended a 50th commemoration of the men’s deaths in January 2007 in Limerick.

In 1971, a monument is unveiled to O’Hanlon in his hometown on a hill overlooking the Clones Road on which he had made his last journey home. A Gaelic football team is founded in Monaghan in 2003 and called the Fergal O’Hanlons.

O’Hanlon’s brother, Eighneachán Ó hAnnluain, is elected a Sinn Féin abstentionist TD in the 1957 Irish general election to Dáil Éireann. His sister, Pádraigín Uí Mhurchadha, is a Sinn Féin Councillor on Monaghan Urban Council.


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Birth of Austin Stack, Irish Republican & Politician

Augustine Mary Moore Stack, Irish republican and politician who serves as Minister for Home Affairs from 1921 to 1922, is born on December 7, 1879, in Ballymullen, Tralee, County Kerry. He is a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1918 to 1927.

Stack is born to William Stack, an attorney’s clerk, and Nanette O’Neill. He is educated at the Christian Brothers School in Tralee. At the age of fourteen, he leaves school and becomes a clerk in a solicitor‘s office. A gifted Gaelic footballer, he captains the Kerry team to All-Ireland victory in 1904. He also serves as President of the Kerry Gaelic Athletic Association County Board.

Stack becomes politically active in 1908 when he joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). In 1916, as commandant of the Kerry Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, he makes preparations for the landing of arms by Roger Casement. He is made aware that Casement was arrested on Easter Saturday and was being held in Tralee. He makes no attempt to rescue him from Ballymullen Barracks.

Stack is arrested and sentenced to death for his involvement in the Easter Rising, however, this is later commuted to penal servitude for life. He is released under general amnesty in June 1917 and is elected as an abstentionist Sinn Féin MP for West Kerry at the 1918 Irish general election, becoming a member of the First Dáil. He is elected unopposed as an abstentionist member of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and a member of the Second Dáil as a Sinn Féin TD for Kerry–Limerick West at the 1921 Irish elections.

Stack, as part of his role as Minister for Home Affairs, is widely credited with the creation and administration of the Dáil Courts. These are courts run by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in parallel and opposition to the judicial system being run by the British government. The IRA and Sinn Féin are highly successful in both getting the civilian population of Ireland to use the courts and accept their rulings. The success of this initiative gives Sinn Féin a large boost in legitimacy and supports their goals in creating a “counter-state” within Ireland as part of their overarching goals in the Irish War of Independence.

Stack opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and takes part in the subsequent Irish Civil War. He is captured in 1923 and goes on hunger strike for forty-one days before being released in July 1924.

Stack is elected to the Third Dáil at the 1922 Irish general election and subsequent elections as an Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD for the Kerry constituency. When Éamon de Valera founds Fianna Fáil in 1926, Stack remains with Sinn Féin, being re-elected to the Dáil at the June 1927 Irish general election. He does not contest the September 1927 Irish general election.

In 1925, Stack marries Winifred (Una) Gordon, (née Cassidy), the widow of a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) district inspector, Patrick Gordon.

Stack’s health never recovers following his hunger strike and he dies at the age of 49 in a Dublin hospital on April 27, 1929.

Austin Stack Park in his hometown of Tralee, one of the Gaelic Athletic Association’s stadiums, is named in his honour, as is the Austin Stacks GAA hurling and Gaelic football club.


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Death of Patrick O’Callaghan, Olympic Gold Medalist

Patrick “Pat” O’Callaghan, Olympic gold medalist and world record holder, dies on December 1, 1991, in Clonmel, County Tipperary.

O’Callaghan is born on September 15, 1905, at Derrygallon, Kanturk, County Cork. He attends the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) in Dublin and qualifies as a doctor at the age of 20. He joins the Royal Air Force Medical Services in 1926 on a short-service engagement, before moving to Clonmel in 1931 to work as an assistant medical officer in St. Luke’s Hospital, later setting up as a general practitioner in the town. He continues to practise there until the late 1980s.

While in university, O’Callaghan develops an interest in the hammer, having seen the country’s top hammer-throwers practise at the University College Dublin (UCD) grounds, then at Terenure College. At home in Cork for the summer, he does not have access to a hammer, so he collects an old cannon ball from Macroom Castle which he feels might approximate to the required 16 lb. (7.25 kg) weight, has it drilled at a foundry in Mallow and fitted with a handle and wire, and uses it to train at the family farm. In 1926 he wins the Munster title in the 56 lb. (25.4 kg) shot and follows that with an Irish hammer title in 1927. Victory the following year in that same championship qualifies him for the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, which he enters as a complete unknown with a previous best of 166 ft. 11 in. (50.87 m), as against three other contenders who have each thrown well over 170 ft. (51.8 m). The hammer event is staged on July 30, 1928, and, lying third after four rounds, he throws 168 ft. 7 in. (51.38 m) with his penultimate attempt, to defeat the Swedish favourite, Ossian Skiöld, by 4 inches (10 cm), with the American contenders Edmund Black and Frank Conner, still further behind. He becomes the first athlete from the Irish Free State to be crowned Olympic champion. Less than a fortnight later, he wins the Tailteann Games with an Irish record throw of 170 ft. 2 in. (51.87 m).

Over the following years O’Callaghan wins events across Ireland and Europe and continues to achieve pioneering feats, not least in 1931, when he wins six Irish titles in one afternoon: hammer, shot put, discus, high jump, 56 lbs. without follow, and 56 lbs. over-the-bar. On August 1, 1932, he defends his Olympic title at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. With just one throw left in the competition, he trails second behind the Finnish champion, Ville Pörhölä. With his last throw, he claims the event with a distance of 176 ft. 11 in. (53.92 m), becoming the only Irish person in history to win two gold medals at the Olympic games. He seems in prime condition to defend his title for a third time at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, but a dispute in the athletics world brings the suspension of the National Athletic and Cycling Association of Ireland (NACAI) by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF). The subsequent decision not to send a team to Berlin by the Irish Olympic Council denies him the opportunity to win a hat-trick of gold medals.

O’Callaghan remains a dominant force in athletic circles, however. In 1934 he sets the record for the hammer on European soil with a throw of 186 ft. 10 in. (56.95 m) at Enniscorthy, County Wexford. He later achieves an unofficial world record in the hammer in 1937 in Fermoy, County Cork, with a remarkable throw of 195 ft. 5 in. (59.55 m), breaking the old record by more than 6 ft. (1.83 m). As the IAAF still refuses to sanction the NACAI, the record is not ratified, ensuring that the then twenty-four-year-old record of his compatriot, Patrick Ryan, who competes for the United States, remains in place. In total, as well as his two Olympic gold medals, he also wins six Irish championships in the hammer, four Irish championships in the 56 lb. shot, three Irish championships throwing the 56 lb. weight over-the-bar, and one Irish championship in the discus. He also wins the American hammer championship in 1933 and the British championship in the same event the following year. Despite his size, he jumps 6 ft. 2 in. (1.88 m) in the high jump and is Irish champion on three consecutive occasions (1929–31).

After an accident in which a child is killed by a flying hammer, O’Callaghan emigrates to the United States just before World War II and takes up professional wrestling. Attempts are made to set up a match with world wrestling champion Dan O’Mahoney, but this never occurs. He has a high profile, however. Samuel Goldwyn offers him the film role of Tarzan and he plays handball with Bing Crosby before returning home to Clonmel, where he becomes a prominent member of Clonmel Commercials Gaelic football club and manages that club’s senior team to three county championships (1965–67). He is later chairman and honorary president of the club. In 1984 he is made a Freeman of Clonmel, a town where he is known as “the doc” or “Dr. Pat” and revered as a humble, charming, jovial man, with a reputation for particular kindness to his poorer patients. At 6 ft. 1 in. (1.855 m) and sixteen stone (101.6 kg), he is a larger-than-life figure and the focal point of innumerable stories confirming his status as a living legend. In 1960 he is the first person voted into the newly conceived Texaco Hall of Fame. He lives for many years at Roseville, Western Road, Clonmel, and dies there on December 1, 1991.

O’Callaghan is survived by three sons and one daughter. His younger brother Con represents Ireland in the decathlon at the 1928 Olympic games and wins that event at the third Tailteann games in 1932.

(From: “O’Callaghan, Patrick (‘Pat’)” by Paul Rouse, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie)


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Birth of Mick Galwey, Gaelic Football & Rugby Union Player

Michael Joseph Galwey, Gaelic football and rugby union player, is born on October 8, 1966, in Currow, County Kerry. As a 19-year-old he wins an All-Ireland Senior Football Championship with the Kerry Gaelic football team in 1986, before turning to rugby union. He is thus the only winner of an “All-Ireland” in both rugby union and Gaelic football. He also holds County Championship medals in Senior, Junior and Minor grades. His nickname ‘Gaillimh’ comes from the name of the Irish town Galway, in the Irish language.

Before becoming a rugby player Galwey plays Gaelic football with Kerry. His first success at intercounty level comes in 1986 when he is part of the Kerry team that wins that year’s All-Ireland. He plays in the semi-final win over Meath. The following year he wins a Munster Under 21 Championship medal and later plays in the All-Ireland final but his side loses out to Donegal. In 1989 he plays his second and last championship game with Kerry in the Munster Championship first round win over Limerick, a game that he also captains the side in.

At club level Galwey plays with his local Currow club. The club produces three other senior Irish Rugby Internationals – Moss Keane, Mick Doyle and Tommy Doyle, an All-Ireland Minor winner in 1962, along with an U-20 Irish Rugby International, JJ Hanrahan. He plays a key part in helping Currow win their first Kerry Junior Football Championship in 1988 when they beat Rathmore in the final.

Galwey also plays with the St. Kieran’s divisional team. In 1988 he helps them win their first and to date only Kerry Senior Football Championship title.

After making the switch to rugby union, Galwey is a key figure in Shannon RFC‘s side during their four in a row winning streak of All-Ireland League titles in the late 1990s. Throughout his career he proves to be a leader who can inspire and motivate players around him to punch above their collective weights. He instills a “don’t panic” and professional attitude in his Shannon team which later becomes the hallmarks of Munster Rugby during his tenancy as captain. He is seen as a legend of the sport in his native Munster, particularly in Limerick.

Galwey’s involvement in the Irish national squad is more of a mixed bag. Making his debut in 1991 against France, his 11-year international career is rarely without controversy. Owing to the selection decisions of various national coaches and selectors, he becomes the most dropped player in international history. He fights his way back onto the Irish squad, becoming the team’s captain ten years after he made his debut. In the 1993 Five Nations Championship match against England, he rounds off a fine display in the 17–3 defeat by scoring the only try of the game. His efforts are rewarded later that year when he is selected for the Lions tour to New Zealand.

Galwey plays for the Ireland national rugby sevens team at the inaugural 1993 Rugby World Cup Sevens.

Galwey’s rugby record includes 41 caps for Ireland, four times as captain and scorer of three tries; 1993 Lions tour to New Zealand; 130 caps for Munster, 85 as captain, 1 Celtic League; 10 Munster senior cups and 6 All-Ireland Leagues with Shannon R.F.C.; 113 games for Shannon in the All-Ireland League, scoring 28 tries.

Galwey has coached Shannon to two All-Ireland League victories and two Munster Senior Cups.


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Death of Larry Cunningham, Irish County Music Singer

Larry Cunningham, Irish country music singer, who is one of the leading figures of the Irish showband scene in the 1960s and 1970s, dies in Dublin on September 28, 2012, following a lengthy illness. He is regarded as a “trailblazer” and “legend” in the music industry.

Cunningham is born in Clooneen, Mullinalaghta, County Longford on February 13, 1938. He grows up in a farming family of seven children. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he goes to England and works as a carpenter, playing Irish traditional music and Gaelic football during his spare time. In 1958 he returns to Ireland. Still working as a carpenter, he soon joins the part-time Gowna-based Grafton Showband, but leaves it in 1961 to become fully professional as the lead singer of the Mighty Avons, based in Cavan. That band initially specialises in covers of Jim Reeves songs and similar country material.

The band’s first taste of fame comes when they are supporting Jim Reeves during the Irish leg of his European tour in 1963. When Reeves walks off the stage during a concert in Lifford in protest at the poor condition of the supplied piano, the Avons, as they later become popularly called, take over and entertain the crowd, to much subsequent publicity and acclaim.

In December 1964, Cunningham and the Mighty Avons have a Top-10 hit with the song Tribute to Jim Reeves, which also enters the British charts and is played on Top of the Pops, both firsts for an Irish artist, which further boosts their career. Their major hit is Lovely Leitrim in September 1965, which stays at number one in the charts for four weeks. As well as regularly touring Ireland to large crowds, the Avons make many appearances on television, and often played in Britain, the United States, and other places.

In late 1969, Cunningham leaves the Mighty Avons and merges with Edenderry band The Fairways to form Larry Cunningham and the Country Blue Boys, leaving Gene Stuart to front the Avons. He continues having success with his new band, but after his marriage to Beatrice Nannery in February 1972 he gives up regular touring in favour of occasional concerts and recording. He continues to have top-10 hits until the mid-1970s, and still performs occasionally for the remainder of his life. In recent years, audio and video compilations of his music have been released, as well as a biography.

Cunningham dies in Dublin on September 28, 2012, following a lengthy illness. Among those to pay tribute are U.S. country singer Robert Mizzell who says, “I am so saddened to hear of the passing of country legend Larry. I admired his talent and quick humour. My thoughts are with his family, friends, and the fans who loved the big deep voice that rattled the radio waves.”


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First Assassination by “The Squad”

On July 30, 1919, the first assassination authorised by Michael Collins is carried out by The Squad, also known as the Twelve Apostles, when Detective Sergeant “the Dog” Smith is shot near Drumcondra, Dublin.

The Squad is an Irish Republican Army (IRA) unit founded by Collins to counter British intelligence efforts during the Irish War of Independence, mainly by means of assassination.

On April 10, 1919, the First Dáil announces a policy of ostracism of Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) men. At the time Sinn Féin official policy is against acts of violence. Boycotting, persuasion and mild intimidation succeed against many officers. However others escalate their activities against republicans and in March 1920 Collins asks Dick McKee to select a small group to form an assassination unit.

When The Squad is formed, it comes directly under the control of the Director of Intelligence or his deputy and under no other authority. The Squad is commanded by Mick McDonnell.

The original “Twelve Apostles” are Mick McDonnell, Tom Keogh, Jimmy Slattery, Paddy Daly, Joe Leonard, Ben Barrett, Vincent Byrne, Sean Doyle, Paddy Griffin, Eddie Byrne, Mick Reilly and Jimmy Conroy. After some time The Squad is strengthened with members Ben Byrne, Frank Bolster, Mick Keogh, Mick Kennedy, Bill Stapleton and Sam Robinson. Owen Cullen, a member of 2nd Battalion, is driver for a short time, and Paddy Kelly of County Clare for a short time. They are employed full-time and received a weekly wage.

Sometimes, as occasion demands, The Squad is strengthened by members of the IRA Intelligence Staff, the Active Service Unit, munition workers and members of the Dublin Brigade, Tipperary Flying Column men, Dan Breen, Séumas Robinson, Seán Treacy and Seán Hogan, and also Mick Brennan and Michael Prendergast of County Clare. The IRA Intelligence Staff consists of the Director of Intelligence Michael Collins, the Deputy Director of Intelligence Liam Tobin, the Second Deputy Director of Intelligence Tom Cullen, the Third Director of Intelligence Frank Thornton, and members Joe Dolan, Frank Saurin, Ned Kelleher, Joe Guilfoyle, Paddy Caldwell, Paddy Kennedy, Charlie Dalton, Dan McDonnell and Charlie Byrne. The munitions workers include Mat Furlong, Sean Sullivan, Gay McGrath, Martin O’ Kelly, Tom Younge and Chris Reilly.

Other members include Mick Love, Gearoid O’Sullivan, Patrick Caldwell, Charlie Dalton, Mick O’Reilly, Sean Healy, James Ronan, Paddy Lawson, John Dunne, Johnny Wilson and James Heery. Seán Lemass and Stephen Behan, the father of Irish writers Brendan and Dominic Behan, have also been listed as members of the Apostles. There is no hard evidence to support the inclusion of many of the names, but those who subsequently serve in the Irish Army have their active service recorded in their service records held in the Military Archives Department in Cathal Brugha Barracks, Rathmines. Andrew Cooney is also reported to have been associated with The Squad. Stephen Behan’s involvement is first made public in 1962, when the BBC broadcasts an episode of This Is Your Life dedicated to Behan. During the broadcast, remaining members of the squad joined Behan on the set of the show.

Following “The Dog” Smith’s assassination, The Squad continues to target plainclothes police, members of the G Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, and, occasionally, problematic civil servants. Organisationally it operates as a subsection of Collins’ Intelligence Headquarters. Two of the executions by The Squad are the killing on January 21, 1920 of RIC Inspector William Redmond of the DMP “G” Division and on March 2, 1920 a British double agent John Charles Byrnes.

One of the Apostles’ particular targets is the Cairo Gang, a deep-cover British intelligence group, so called since it has either been largely assembled from intelligence officers serving in Cairo or from the Dublin restaurant called The Cairo, which the gang frequents. Sir Henry Wilson brings in the Cairo Gang in the middle of 1920, explicitly to deal with Michael Collins and his organization. Given carte blanche in its operations by Wilson, the Cairo Gang adopts the strategy of assassinating members of Sinn Féin unconnected with the military struggle, assuming that this will cause the IRA to respond and bring its leaders into the open.

The most well-known operation executed by the Apostles occurs on what becomes known as Bloody Sunday, November 21, 1920, when British MI5 officers, linked to the Cairo Gang and significantly involved in spying, are shot at various locations in Dublin with fourteen killed and six wounded. In addition to the The Squad, a larger number of IRA personnel are involved in this operation. The only IRA man captured during the operation is Frank Teeling. In response to the killings, the Black and Tans retaliate by shooting up a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary at Croke Park, the proceeds from which are for the Irish Republican Prisoners Fund. Fourteen civilians are killed including one of the players, Michael Hogan, and 68 are wounded. The Hogan stand at Croke Park is named after Hogan.

The elimination of the Cairo Gang is seen in Dublin as an intelligence victory, but British Prime Minister David Lloyd George comments dismissively that his men “… got what they deserved, beaten by counter-jumpers…”. Winston Churchill adds that they were “.. careless fellows … who ought to have taken precautions.”

Some members of The Squad are hanged in 1921 for the killings on Bloody Sunday, including Thomas Whelan and Patrick Moran. Moran had killed a vet, Patrick MacCormack, who seems to have been an innocent victim.

In May 1921, after the IRA’s Dublin Brigade takes heavy casualties during the burning of the Custom House, The Squad and the Brigade’s Active Service Unit are amalgamated into the Dublin Guard, under Paddy Daly. Under the influence of Daly and Michael Collins, most of the Guard take the Free State side and join the National Army in the Irish Civil War of 1922–23. During this conflict some of them are attached to the Criminal Investigation Department and are accused of multiple assassinations of Anti-Treaty fighters. They are also involved in several atrocities against Republican prisoners, particularly after the death of Collins, due to many of them having personal ties with him.

Bill Stapleton goes on to become a director in Bord na Móna, Charles Dalton and Frank Saurin become directors in the Irish Sweepstakes. In October 1923, Commandant James Conroy is implicated in the murder of two Jewish men, Bernard Goldberg and Emmanuel ‘Ernest’ Kahn. He avoids arrest by fleeing to Mexico, returning later to join the Blueshirts. A later application for an army pension is rejected. The killings are the subject of a 2010 investigative documentary by RTÉ, CSÍ: Murder in Little Jerusalem.