The Cork Sportsman: a provincial sporting newspaper, 1908–1911

Abstract

This article examines the regional, Cork-based sporting newspaper, the Cork Sportsman, for its lifespan of 3 years, when it was published weekly from 1908 to 1911. The article seeks to place this sporting newspaper in the context of the development of a specialist sporting press in Ireland from the late nineteenth century as well as in the context of the development of sporting coverage in the traditional newspaper trade developing simultaneously both nationally and regionally. Moreover, this article seeks to address why the newspaper had such a short lifespan at a time when coverage of sport in newspapers was growing and expanding in scope in the region. In so doing, this article argues that close examination of sporting newspapers is an important element of understanding the way in which sports history is written, given the significance of newspapers as a source in the methodology of many historians of sport.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. William O'Brien (1852–1928) was an Irish journalist and politician of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He was the leader of both the United Irish League and later the All-For-Ireland League, and presented serious opposition at one point, especially in Cork, to John Redmond's Irish Party. Both were grassroots political organisations that attempted to challenge the hegemony of the Redmond-led Irish Party.

^2. For an in-depth analysis of the impact of the various schisms within the GAA during this period see McElligott, Forging a Kingdom: The GAA in Kerry, 1884–1934, 65–107; The Parnell split was a schism in Irish popular politics when it was revealed that the leader of the Irish parliamentary party in Westminster, Charles Stuart Parnell, was romantically involved with a divorcée, Kitty O'Shea. Causing a scandal among the majority Catholic population of Ireland, it saw those who wished to continue supporting Parnell splitting away from those who did not.

^3. The Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret, oath-bound society that sought to achieve Irish freedom from the UK by violent means. The structure of the GAA in Cork in the early twentieth century was as follows: a number of subcommittees comprised of those elected to the Cork county board looked after the various leagues in both hurling and football in the city and county. Members of the county board were in turn elected to represent Corks interests both at provincial level at the Munster Council and nationally the GAA's Central Council.

^4. The Aonach Tailteann was an event held three times from 1924 to 1932, a kind of ‘Irish’ Olympics which saw Irish athletes and those from the Irish diaspora competing in a variety of events over the course of a fortnight in Ireland's capital city in Dublin. J. J. Walsh was a key figure in seeing these events come to fruition.