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Birth of Rob Kearney, Former Rugby Union Player

Robert Kearney, former rugby union player, is born on a dairy farm on March 26, 1986, on the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth. He plays for 15 years for Leinster followed by a six-month stint in Australia, playing for Perth based side Western Force. He also plays over a decade for the Ireland national rugby union team with whom he earns 95 caps and goes on two British & Irish Lions tours in 2009 and 2013. As a youth he also plays rugby union for Clongowes Wood College and Gaelic football for Louth in the All-Ireland Minor Football Championship.

Kearney is the third of five children. He has an older brother, Richard, a younger brother Dave (who plays for Leinster) and a sister, Sara, the youngest of the five children. His elder brother Ross dies at the age of six following an accident in 1988. He is a seventh cousin of former U.S. President Joe Biden.

Like many of his peers, Kearney gets involved in athletics at an early age. The dominant sport in the area is Gaelic football. As a youth, he plays Gaelic for Naomh Muire, and in the Cooley Kickhams underage setup, before graduating to the Cooley senior football team at the age of 17 in 2004 and also Louth at minor level.

Kearney attends Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare for his secondary education. After his Leaving Certificate he moves to University College Dublin (UCD) on a sports scholarship, where he plays for the rugby team. He graduates in April 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. In 2005 he helps the U-20s team win the McCorry Cup, beating Dublin University Football Club (DUFC) in the final. In 2018, he is awarded the UCD Alumni Award in Sport.

Kearney plays for Leinster at both schoolboy and U-19 level before going on to represent them as a senior. He scores a hat-trick of tries on his debut for Leinster in a pre-season friendly win over Parma.

Kearney makes his Celtic League debut for Leinster in 2005 in a 22–20 defeat away to the Ospreys. He makes 32 appearances in the competition, scoring eight tries, with three penalties during a period in September 2006, when usual place kicker, Felipe Contepomi, is injured. He plays in his first Heineken Cup game in a 19–22 defeat against Bath at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) on October 22, 2005. It is the first of ten appearances scoring ten tries in the process. He is part of Leinster’s Heineken Cup winning team in 2009 but misses the 2011 final due to injury. On May 21, 2012, the day after Leinster wins their second straight Heineken Cup, he is announced as the ERC Player of the Year for 2012. During the 2011–12 campaign he starts all nine European matches scoring six tries. He is crowned Leinster player of the year for the 2011–12 season. He confirms his departure from Leinster on September 24, 2020.

In late September 2020, it is confirmed that Kearney has signed a one-year contract with Australian side Western Force. He makes his Force debut in an 11–27 defeat to the Brumbies on February 19, 2021. He announces his retirement from rugby after one season with Western Force in Super Rugby AU and Super Rugby Trans-Tasman. Following his retirement, he returns to Louth GAA club Cooley Kickhams where he begins training in August 2021 for the first time since 2005.

Kearney represents Ireland at schoolboy and U-19 level, and tours with Ireland A in the 2006 Churchill Cup. He is first called into the Irish training squad for 2005’s autumn internationals but does not play. He is named in the Irish squad to the 2007 summer tour of Argentina and earns his first cap against Argentina on June 2, 2007, in a 16–0 defeat. During the 2008 Six Nations Championship he scores two tries, one against Scotland and one against England. He is a member of the victorious Ireland team that wins the 2009 Six Nations Championship, Triple Crown and Grand Slam. One of the most famous incidents in his career is a high tackle incident involving Italy‘s Andrea Masi in the first minute of a game. The incident is taken as an indication of the danger posed by Kearney in attack. He misses almost a year – from November 2010 until August 2011 – due to a knee injury that requires surgery.

In the 2011 Rugby World Cup, Kearney is selected but is injured for the first game against the United States. However, he plays in all the other matches which take Ireland through to the quarterfinals, in which they are knocked out by Wales, 22–10. He is selected in the Ireland squad for the 2012 Six Nations Championship and named in the starting team to play Wales in the opening match. He plays in all the other games, which see Ireland finish third in the table. He is also in the first Irish rugby team in 39 years to beat Australia on Australian soil, in the 2018 summer series. He is named in the Ireland squad for the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan, starting three of Ireland’s five matches and splitting time at fullback with Jordan Larmour.

Kearney is named in the British & Irish Lions squad for the 2009 tour to South Africa. He makes his Lions test debut as a substitute in the 26–21 first test defeat in Durban. Due to an injury to Lee Byrne, he is selected again for the second test in Pretoria. He scores the only try for the Lions in a 28–25 defeat. He then plays in the final test in Johannesburg which the Lions win 28–9. On April 30, 2013, he is named in his second British & Irish Lions squad.

Kearney marries Jess Redden in 2021, and their son is born in 2023.


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Ireland Wins the Rugby Triple Crown for First Time

Ireland wins the rugby Triple Crown for first time on March 10, 1894. In rugby union, the Triple Crown (Irish: An Choróin Triarach) is an honour contested annually by the national teams of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales as part of the Six Nations Championship. If any one team manages to win all their games against the other three then they win the Triple Crown.

The history of the Ireland national rugby union team begins in 1875, when Ireland plays its first international match, a 0–7 loss against England. Ireland has competed in the Six Nations (formerly known as the Five Nations and originally known as the Home Nations) rugby tournament since 1883. Ireland has also competed at the Rugby World Cup every four years since its inception.

Dublin University is the first organised rugby football club in Ireland, having been founded in 1854. The club is organised by students who have learned the game while at English public schools. During the third quarter of the nineteenth century, and following the adoption of a set of official rules in 1868, rugby football begins to spread quickly throughout Ireland, resulting in the formation of several other clubs which are still in existence, including North of Ireland F.C. (1868), Wanderers F.C. (1869), Queen’s University RFC (1869), Youghal RFC (1869), Lansdowne F.C. (1873), Dungannon RFC (1873), County Carlow F.C. (1873), University College Cork RFC (1874) and Ballinasloe RFC (1875) which amalgamates with Athlone RFC to form Buccaneers RFC.

In 1874, the Irish Football Union. reconstituted as the Irish Rugby Football Union after unification with the North of Ireland Union, is formed by Dublin University Football Club, Wanderers F.C., Engineers F.C., Lansdowne F.C., Bray, Portora, Dungannon RFC and Monaghan. Ireland loses their first test match against England 0-7 at The Oval on February 15, 1875. Both teams field twenty players in this match, as is customary in the early years of rugby union. It was not until 1877 that the number of players is reduced from twenty to fifteen. Ireland’s first home game is also against England in the same year. It is held at the Leinster Cricket Club in Rathmines as Lansdowne Road is deemed unsuitable. The first match at Lansdowne Road is held on March 11, 1878, with England beating Ireland by 2 goals and 1 try to nil.

It is not until 1881 that Ireland first wins a test, beating Scotland at Ormeau Cricket Ground in Belfast. Ireland turns up two men short for their game in Cardiff in 1884 and has to borrow two Welsh players. The first victory Ireland has at Lansdowne Road takes place on February 5, 1887. It is also their first win over England, by two goals to nil. On March 3, 1888, Ireland records their first win over Wales with a goal, a try and a drop goal to nil.

In 1894, Ireland follows the Welsh model of using seven backs instead of six for the first time. After victory over England at Blackheath, Ireland wins back-to-back matches for the first time when recording their first win over Scotland on February 24, 1894. Ireland goes on to beat Wales in Belfast on March 10, 1894, and wins the Triple Crown for the first time.

In the 1890s, rugby is primarily a game for the Protestant middle class, the only Catholic in Edmund Forrest’s 1894 team is Thomas Crean. Of the eighteen players used in the three games, thirteen are from three Dublin clubs – Wanderers, Dublin University and Bective Rangers – and the remaining five are from Ulster. They go on to win the Home international championship twice more before the century is out (1896 and 1899), so that by 1901 all four of the Home Unions have tasted success at a game that is growing in popularity with players and spectators.

(Pictured: The 1894 Ireland Rugby Union team, Kildare Observer, Irish News Archives)


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Birth of Karl Mullen, Rugby Union Player & Gynecologist

Dr. Karl Daniel Mullen, rugby union player and consultant gynecologist who captains the Irish rugby team and captains the British Lions on their 1950 tour to Australia and New Zealand, is born on November 26, 1926, in Courtown Harbour, County Wexford.

Mullen is one of three sons and seven daughters of Daniel Mullen, an officer of the customs and excise, and his wife Annie (née Hargrove). After his parents move to Home Farm Road, Drumcondra, Dublin, he is educated at the Dominican St. Thomas’s Academy, Eccles Street, the Jesuit Belvedere College, Great Denmark Street, and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). He plays rugby and cricket at school, association football with Home Farm F.C., and golf in the summer months. Initially a centre, he becomes a prop on the Belvedere junior cup team and, after injury to a teammate, hooker on the senior cup team, which loses the Leinster Schools Rugby Senior Cup final to Castleknock College in 1944.

On January 25, 1947, Mullen makes his formal Irish debut in a 12–8 loss to France. He plays as hooker, winning 25 caps for Ireland from 1947 to 1952. A year later, on January 31, 1948, he plays his first game for Barbarian F.C. in a 9–6 victory over Australia in Cardiff, Wales. After helping Ireland to victory over France on January 1, 1948, at the age of 21, he captains Ireland for the first time, on February 14, 1948, leading them to an 11–10 victory over England at Twickenham Stadium.

Mullen captains the Irish team to their first Grand Slam in the 1948 Five Nations Championship and is one of eight players from that team who live to see the country’s next Grand Slam in 2009.

Ireland retains the triple crown in 1949 by beating Wales 5–0 in Swansea, ending a run of defeats on Welsh soil lasting fourteen years. The following season Ireland suffers from injuries and loses to both England and Wales, the latter securing the triple crown.

Mullen is selected to captain the 1950 Lions Tour to Australia and New Zealand. After appearing in the first two tests against New Zealand, a 9–9 draw and an 8–0 loss, he sustains an ankle injury in the latter game and concedes his place to Dai Davies of Wales. Returning for the second test against Australia, a resounding 24–3 victory, he also plays in a semi-official “British Isles RFU” team against Ceylon during their return journey in September.

Under Mullen’s captaincy Ireland regains the international championship in 1951. His last cap comes in a 14–3 loss to Wales at Lansdowne Road on March 8, 1952. In twenty-five successive appearances (fifteen as captain), he secured three international championships and two triple crowns for Ireland in four seasons, their most successful haul of the twentieth century.

Mullen’s distinguished rugby career has to be fitted around his medical studies. In 1945, he enters the RCSI, graduating L and LM (RCSI and RCPI) in 1949. Awarded the diploma in obstetrics (1952) and membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (1956), he trains at Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital, Jervis Street Hospital and the Rotunda hospitals. After serving as senior obstetrics registrar at the Derby City General Hospital (1953–56), he returns to Dublin to become a consultant obstetrician, based at Mount Carmel Community Hospital, Churchtown, Dublin, and develops a considerable private practice. By his retirement in 2002, he is estimated to have delivered over 40,000 babies. A proponent of sex education in schools, he appears on RTÉ‘s 7 Days in December 1970, outlining various methods of birth control and calling for a more honest and realistic approach to artificial contraception.

Mullen marries Doreen Kilbride, an accomplished soprano, on April 30, 1952, in Donnybrook, Dublin, interrupting their honeymoon to play for Old Belvedere R.F.C. in the Leinster Senior Cup final. They have eight children, three boys and five girls. In 1975, they move from Altamount, Dundrum, Dublin, to Tulfarris House, Blessington, County Wicklow, adjacent to Poulaphouca Reservoir, where they farm and bred Irish draught horses. In 1985, he sells the property and much of his art collection and moves to Kilcullen, County Kildare.

Mullen is one of eight surviving members of the 1948 team to witness Ireland’s second grand slam on March 21, 2009. Only weeks later, having suffered from a long illness, he dies on April 27, 2009, at his home, Gilltown Lodge, in Kilcullen.

(Pictured: Karl Mullen, captain of the British Lions rugby union team, 1950)


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Birth of Anthony Foley, Rugby Union Player and Coach

Anthony Gerard Foley, Irish rugby union player and head coach of Munster, is born on October 30, 1973, in Limerick, County Limerick. He is attached to the same squad during his professional playing career. He is a member of the Munster team that wins the 2002–03 Celtic League and is the winning captain during their 2005–06 Heineken Cup success. He plays for Ireland from 1995 until 2005 and captains the squad on three occasions. He is nicknamed “Axel,” after the fictional character Axel Foley of the Beverly Hills Cop film series. His father Brendan Foley and sister Rosie Foley also play rugby for Ireland.

In March 1989, Foley leads St. Munchin’s College to victory in the Munster Schools Junior Cup. He later represents Munster and Ireland Schools on several occasions over two seasons, notably during the 1992 Irish Schools tour of New Zealand. Winning six games out of eight, Ireland narrowly loses the final game to a New Zealand side featuring Jonah Lomu. A controversial Jeff Wilson penalty-goal wins the game in the final minutes.

Foley makes his professional debut for Munster against Swansea in November 1995, a game that is also Munster’s first ever Heineken Cup fixture. He is on the Munster team that loses 8–9 to Northampton Saints in the 2000 Heineken Cup Final, and is again the runner-up when Munster loses 15–9 to Leicester Tigers in the 2002 Heineken Cup Final. He is finally on the winning side when Munster wins the 2002–03 Celtic League.

When Mick Galwey resigns as Munster captain, Foley narrowly loses to Jim Williams in a vote to decide the next captain. When Williams leaves Munster in 2005, Foley becomes the new captain, and in his first season in the position, he leads Munster to victory over Biarritz Olympique in the 2006 Heineken Cup Final. He has played in all but one of Munster’s first 78 Heineken Cup games until a shoulder injury sustained during Munster’s 21–19 victory over Leicester Tigers at Welford Road Stadium in their first game of the 2006–07 Heineken Cup causes him to miss his side’s subsequent victory over CS Bourgoin-Jallieu, as well as back-to-back games against Cardiff in December 2006.

Foley stands down as captain at the beginning of the 2007–08 season, making way for Paul O’Connell. He is dropped for Munster’s final fixtures of the 2007–08 Heineken Cup, and announces his retirement for the end of the season.

Foley makes his debut for Ireland against England in the 1995 Five Nations Championship on January 21, 1995. He scores a try on his debut in an 8-20 defeat. He goes to the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa, and plays as a replacement in one pool game against Japan which Ireland wins 50-28. He misses the 1999 Rugby World Cup, but is selected for the 2003 Rugby World Cup, featuring in two of the pool games against Romania and Australia.

Foley captains Ireland three times: in 2001 against Samoa, and in 2002 against Romania and Georgia. His last international is against Wales in the 2005 Six Nations Championship. In total he plays in 62 matches for Ireland and scores 5 tries against England in 1995, Romania in 2001, Fiji in 2002, France in 2004, and Wales in 2004.

In March 2011, it is announced that Foley will take over as Munster forwards coach at the end of the 2011 season. He temporarily replaces Gert Smal as Ireland’s forwards coach during the 2012 Six Nations Championship, after Smal is forced to miss the remainder of the tournament with an eye condition. He signs a contract extension with Munster in May 2013. The following year it is announced that he will succeed Rob Penney as Munster’s head coach, signing a two-year contract that begins on July 1, 2014.

Foley dies in his sleep on October 16, 2016, of an acute pulmonary edema brought on by heart disease while staying at a hotel in the Paris suburb of Suresnes with the Munster squad. The team is preparing to face Racing 92 in its opening game of the 2016–17 European Rugby Champions Cup. The match is postponed as a result of his death. President Michael D. Higgins and then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny make tributes to Foley, and the Irish flag flies at half mast at government buildings in Munster.

Foley is brought home to Ireland on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. His funeral takes place on Friday, October 21, 2016 at St. Flannan’s Church in Killaloe, County Clare.

On October 22, 2016, in the first game after Foley’s death, Munster beats Glasgow 38–17 at a sold-out Thomond Park. Tributes are paid to Foley before, during and after the game and the number 8 jersey is retired for the game, with CJ Stander wearing the number 24 for the occasion. Before their historic first ever win against New Zealand at Soldier Field, Chicago, on November 5, 2016, the senior Irish men’s team pays tribute to Foley by forming a figure of 8, led by Munster’s CJ Stander, Simon Zebo, Conor Murray and Donnacha Ryan, to face the All Blacks Haka. Ahead of a game against Munster on November 11, 2016, the Māori All Blacks team pays tribute to Foley by placing a jersey with his initials on the halfway line before performing a Haka. Māori captain Ash Dixon then presents the jersey to Foley’s sons. Munster goes on to win the historic game 27–14. On January 7, 2017, further tributes are paid to Foley when the rescheduled Round 1 fixture between Racing 92 and Munster takes place.

To honour Foley’s memory and contribution to European rugby, the European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) announces that the 2016–17 European Player of the Year would receive the Anthony Foley Memorial Trophy. The trophy is commissioned with the agreement of the Foley family and Munster Rugby and it is envisaged that it will be presented to all future European Player of the Year winners.


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Birth of Willie John McBride, Rugby Union Footballer

William James McBride, former rugby union footballer better known as Willie John McBride, is born at Toomebridge, County Antrim, Northern Ireland on June 6, 1940. He plays as a lock for Ireland and the British and Irish Lions. He plays 63 tests for Ireland including eleven as captain, and tours with the Lions five times, a record that gives him 17 Lions test caps. He also captains the most successful ever Lions side, which tours South Africa in 1974.

Owing to his father’s death when he is four years old, McBride spends most of his spare time helping out on his family farm. Because of this he does not start playing rugby until he is seventeen. He is educated at Ballymena Academy and plays for the school’s First XV. After he leaves he joins Ballymena R.F.C.

In 1962 McBride is selected to play for Ireland. His first Test on February 10, 1962 is against England at Twickenham Stadium. Later that year he is selected to tour South Africa with the British and Irish Lions.

McBride continues to play for Ireland throughout the 1960s and plays for Ireland when they first defeat South Africa in 1965, and when Ireland defeats Australia in Sydney, the first time a Home Nations team had defeated a major southern hemisphere team in their own country. He is again selected for the Lions in 1966, this time touring New Zealand and Australia. He tours South Africa with the Lions again in 1968.

McBride is selected to play for the Lions in their 1971 tour of New Zealand. Despite being criticized by some as being “over the hill,” he is made pack leader and helps the Lions to a test series win over New Zealand, their first and last series win over New Zealand. He receives an MBE in 1971 for services to rugby football.

McBride’s leadership qualities lead to his appointment as captain of the British and Irish Lions in their 1974 tour to South Africa. The test series is won 3–0, with one match drawn, the first Lions series ever won in South Africa. It is one of the most controversial and physical test match series ever played. At the time there are only substitutions if a doctor agrees that a player is physically unable to continue and there are no video cameras and sideline officials to keep the punching, kicking and head butting to a minimum. If the South Africans are to resort to foul play then the Lions decide “to get their retaliation in first.” The signal for this is to call “99,” which is a signal for the Lions to clobber their nearest rival players.

In 1975 as his international career is ending McBride plays his last game for Ireland at Lansdowne Road. The game is against France, and near the end of the match he scores his first test try for Ireland. It is the crowning moment of a great playing career. His last international game is against Wales on March 15, 1975. After retiring from playing the game, McBride coaches the Irish team and is manager of the 1983 Lions tour to New Zealand. Despite the test results being mainly poor, team camaraderie is high and some good wins are recorded in other games.

In 1997 McBride is an inaugural inductee into the International Rugby Hall of Fame. He has been asked to present test jerseys and give motivational speeches to Lions players prior to matches. In 2004 he is named in Rugby World magazine as “Rugby Personality of the Century.” He is a major supporter of the Wooden Spoon Society.

McBride is awarded a CBE in the 2019 New Year Honours list for services to Rugby Union.


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Birth of Ollie Campbell, Former Rugby Union Player

seamus-oliver-campbell

Seamus Oliver “Ollie” Campbell, former rugby union player, is born in Dublin on March 5, 1954. He plays fly-half for the Ireland national rugby union team from 1976 to 1984. He is most well known for his role in orchestrating Ireland’s Triple Crown victory at the 1982 Five Nations Championship, breaking a drought of over 30 years. He has been described as Ireland’s most complete fly-half since Jack Kyle.

Campbell is educated at Belvedere College, a famous Irish rugby school in Dublin, where he is on the teams that win the Leinster Schools Rugby Senior Cup twice in a row in 1971 and 1972. He plays for Old Belvedere R.F.C. at club level and represents Leinster at provincial level, although prior to the professional era. While playing for Old Belvedere, he travels to the United States in 1978, where he plays in New York City against the Old Maroon Rugby Club.

Campbell wins a total of 22 caps for Ireland from 1976–1984, scoring 217 test points. His international career is more brief than this span suggests, however, as he plays only four full seasons for Ireland from 1980–1984. Of his career totals, he wins 22 caps and scores 182 points in the Five Nations tournament. He tours twice with Ireland, to Australia in 1979 and to South Africa in 1981.

Campbell wins his first cap for Ireland at the age of 21 against Australia in 1976, but does not secure another cap with Ireland until 1979 during Ireland’s 1979 tour to Australia. He sets an Irish record on the 1979 tour to Australia when he scors 60 points, 19 of them in Brisbane which is an Irish record for points in a match against Australia.

The defining moment in Campbell’s career comes in 1982, with Campbell as the architect-in-chief of Ireland’s 1982 Triple Crown victory, Ireland’s first since 1949. Ireland enters the tournament winless in its past eight matches. Campbell starts the 1982 Five Nations by scoring eight points in Ireland’s 20–12 win against Wales, and also playing a major hand in all three of Ireland’s tries. He then scores another eight points in the following match, a 16–15 win against England. In Ireland’s third match, he kicks all of Ireland’s 21 points, including a career best 6 penalties, against Scotland at Lansdowne Road to secure the Triple Crown. He is the leading scorer in the 1982 Five Nations with 46 points.

In the 1983 Five Nations Championship, Campbell leads Ireland to a joint Five Nations Championship shared with France. He is again the tournament’s leading scorer with 52 points, and scores 21 points against England to set an Irish record for most points against England in a Five Nations match. He plays his last match for Ireland in 1984 against Wales.

Campbell is also capped seven times for the British & Irish Lions. He earns three caps in the 1980 Lions tour to South Africa, where he is the Lions’ leading scorer in the last two tests with six and five points respectively. He earns another four caps in the 1983 Lions tour to New Zealand, where he is the Lions’ leading scorer in the four test matches with 15 points. He scores 184 points in total for the Lions.

Campbell retires from rugby in 1986 following two years of struggles with hamstring injuries. In 2007 he is presented with the Newbridge RFC Legend in Rugby Award along with the Irish Rugby Squad which won the 1982 Triple Crown and elected an Honorary Life Member of Newbridge RFC. He has worked in the family clothing business since retirement from rugby in 1984.

Old Belvedere’s sportsground on Anglesea Road in Dublin is renamed Ollie Campbell Park in his honour in 2019.


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Birth of Ciaran Fitzgerald, Former Rugby Union Player

ciaran-fitzgerald

Ciaran Fitzgerald, Irish former rugby union player, is born on June 4, 1952, in Loughrea, County Galway. He captains Ireland to the Triple Crown in 1982 and 1985, and the Five Nations Championship in 1983. He also captains the British and Irish Lions on their 1983 tour. After the conclusion of his playing career, he serves as coach of the national team.

Though most widely remembered for playing rugby union, Fitzgerald is an accomplished sportsman, winning two All-Ireland boxing championships. He also plays minor hurling for Galway GAA with his team reaching the minor final against Cork GAA in 1970.

Fitzgerald first plays rugby while at Garbally College, and is chosen to play the position of hooker by teacher and priest John Kirby. He studies at University College Galway, where he plays for University College Galway RFC and gains a bachelor’s degree in 1973. He then goes on to play senior rugby for St. Mary’s College in Dublin.

Playing in the amateur era, Fitzgerald also maintains a career in the Irish Army. He also serves as the aide-de-camp to President Patrick Hillery during his career.

Fitzgerald rises to prominence in the game of rugby, making his test debut for Ireland against Australia on June 3, 1979, during an Irish tour of Australia. His last test comes against Scotland on March 15, 1986, in the 1986 Five Nations Championship. In total, Fitzgerald receives 22 competitive and three friendly caps for Ireland. He scores once, a try against Wales, in the 1980 Five Nations Championship. He also captains the British and Irish Lions team on their 1983 tour, when the team travels to New Zealand and is beaten in each test against the All Blacks.

Following his retirement from playing, Fitzgerald continues to be involved in the game. He serves as head coach of Ireland from 1990 to 1992, leading the team to the 1991 Rugby World Cup, where they reach the quarterfinals. He also had a career in media, appearing on Setanta Sports and RTÉ, the Irish national TV and radio service, as a rugby pundit.


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Birth of Tom Clifford, Irish Rugby Union Player

Tom Clifford, Irish rugby union player who plays in the prop position, is born in Phippsboro, County Tipperary, on November 15, 1923. Clifford plays club rugby with Young Munster, represents the Munster Rugby provincial team, is capped fourteen times for Ireland, and is a member of the British and Irish Lions team that tours in 1950.

When Clifford is three years old, his family moves to Limerick. He attends CBS Sexton Street secondary school, where he participates in the school hurling team.

Clifford, at the age of fifteen, makes his senior début for Young Munster at fullback in a friendly match against Constitution. He makes his Munster Senior Cup début in 1943 as a wing forward. During his time at the club, Young Munster wins the Munster Senior League on two occasions, 1944 and 1952 and twice reaches the final of the Munster Senior Cup in 1947 and 1948, but loses both times.

Clifford makes his début for Ireland against France at Landsdowne Road on January 29, 1949 in Ireland’s first game of the 1949 Five Nations Championship. He plays in all four of Ireland’s matches in the 1949 tournament which ends with Ireland being crowned the champions and winning the Triple Crown. He also plays in all of Ireland’s games during the 1950 Five Nations Championship.

Clifford is named in the squad for the 1950 British Lions tour to New Zealand and Australia, the first post-war tour by a British Isles combined team and the first where the team is officially called British Lions. The touring party travels by boat, departing in April and not returning until October. Out of the 29 games played during the tour, Clifford is featured in twenty of them, including all five test matches – three against New Zealand and two against Australia. On his return to Limerick, a crowd of around 8,000 people turn out at Limerick railway station to greet him.

The 1951 Five Nations Championship is again won by Ireland, with Clifford playing in the games against France and England. Clifford’s only appearance at home outside of the Five Nations Championship comes in December 1951, as South Africa plays Ireland as part of their European tour. His final international appearances come during the 1952 Five Nations Championship, with his last game being against Wales on March 8.

Clifford retires from playing rugby in 1957. He dies in Phippsboro on October 1, 1990, at the age of 66. Young Munster’s home group, Tom Clifford Park, is named after him.


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Birth of Mick Doyle, Rugby Union Player & Coach

mick-doyle

Mick Doyle, Irish rugby union international player and coach, is born in Castleisland, County Kerry, on October 13, 1941.

Doyle begins playing rugby union at Newbridge College, County Kildare. He goes on to study veterinary science at University College Dublin, who he also represents at rugby. He makes his Ireland debut against France on January 23, 1965, scoring a try in the game. While representing Ireland he also studies at the University of Cambridge where he gains a Blue in the 1965 Varsity match against the Oxford University RFC. Doyle also studies at the University of Edinburgh and plays club rugby for Edinburgh Wanderers before returning to Ireland.

Doyle goes on to earn the distinction of never being dropped during his 20-cap international career as a flanker. Doyler, as he is affectionately known, scores the winning try against Wales in the 1967 Five Nations Championship, tours Australia with Ireland in 1967 and South Africa with the British and Irish Lions the following year.

His last game for Ireland is against Australia in October 1968, when he lines out alongside his brother Tommy. He coaches Leinster to Interprovincial Championship success five times between 1979 and 1983 before he succeeds Willie John McBride as Ireland coach during the 1984–85 season. Under In 1985, under Doyle’s stewardship, Ireland wins the Triple Crown and Five Nations Championship.

Doyle leads Ireland to the inaugural 1987 Rugby World Cup, but that joy is tinged with sadness as he suffers a heart attack at the opening dinner. He battles illness and adversity and his recovery from a brain problem is chronicled in his book 0.16.

In later years, apart from working in his veterinary practice, Doyle is a regular contributor to rugby matters on RTÉ Radio One.

Mick Doyle is killed in an automobile accident in Dungannon, County Tyrone, on May 11, 2004.