Nick Maxwell For a brief period, in 1924–5, the National Athletics and Cycling Association of Ireland (NACA) enjoyed undisputed jurisdiction over the island in athletics, cross-country and cycling, receiving formal recognition from the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF). The association was the product of an uneasy post-independence embrace between the Athletics Council of the separatist GAA and … Read more
Built c. 1813 on a 57-acre site owned by Sir John Craven Carden (1757–1820), Richmond Barracks, when completed, was one of the largest in Ireland. Over the course of the nineteenth century it saw a large throughput of regiments, but by 1909 the barracks had been vacated. Templemore Town Council was informed by the War … Read more
At the 1924 games, the only Olympic honours accredited to ‘Irlande’ in Paris were in what was known as the ‘Concourse d’Art’. Poet Oliver St John Gogarty won a joint third place for a work entitled ‘Ode to the Tailteann Games’, and the 53-year-old Jack B. Yeats, already of world renown, won silver in the … Read more
Following the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, the UK government interned ‘all Germans, Hungarians and Austrians of military age’ throughout Britain and Ireland, and 300 civilians were briefly interned at Richmond. When the first batch of 400 military prisoners arrived on 10 September 1914, the civilian internees were moved to camps at … Read more
Sir, —I was disappointed that your review of Car Bomber (‘TV Eye’, HI 16.5, Sept./Oct. 2008), while well informed, missed out on the fact that an actual car bomb was used in Ireland in the 1920s, and so the scene in Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins was not so far-fetched. During the Civil War, on 18 … Read more