Nick Maxwell The outstanding figure from the early years of Irish women’s athletics was Ellie Mary ‘Babe’ Leahy from Charleville, Co. Limerick, a sister of Olympians Con, Patrick and Tim. Ellie, a tall, athletic woman, regularly took part in high jump exhibitions and her brother Con thought her the best jumper in the family. In a diary, … Read more
Ever since James Joyce’s pioneering biographer Richard Ellmann pronounced that the character of the ‘Citizen’ in Joyce’s novel Ulysses was modelled on the Gaelic Athletic Association’s founder Michael Cusack, the label ‘anti-Semite’ has tarnished Cusack’s reputation. Two screen depictions of the ‘Citizen’ have been noteworthy—a particularly powerful performance by Geoffrey Golden in Joseph Strick’s 1967 … Read more
The past decade has seen a considerable rise in interest in the work of Hugh Douglas Hamilton, best known as a portrait painter. Fintan Cullen’s work on Hamilton has provoked a major reassessment of Hamilton’s importance in the history of Irish art, and Cullen’s analysis of the portrait of Richard Mansergh St George posing beside … Read more
The Irish revolution produced three memoirs that tower above all others, and each one lends its title to an episode of this useful and engaging series. Tom Barry was the son of an RIC officer who learned his trade in the British Army before deploying his skills in a rather different cause back home. Dan … Read more
Heat 1 Tisdall (Ireland) 54.8 Nottbrock (Germany) Hardin (USA) Semi-final 1 Hardin (USA) 52.8 (Olympic record) Taylor (USA) Lord Burghley (Britain) Semi-final 2 Tisdall (Ireland) 52.8 Areksoug (Sweden) Facelli (Italy)