The National Athletic Association of Ireland and Irish Athletics, 1922–1937: steps on the road to athletic isolation

Abstract

The interplay between politics and Irish sport is seldom far from the surface and has often been detrimental to its development. Athletics exhibit this characteristic more than any other sport. A unity of sorts was achieved in 1924 with the final metamorphosis of the National Athletic and Cycling Association of Ireland (NACAI). This unity was not to survive as a range of political interests produced a tripartite institutional split by 1938 that inflicted near terminal damage on the sport and established a type of athletic apartheid as the practitioners of the sport in rural Ireland were deprived of international competition due to their membership of the unrecognized NACAI.

Acknowledgements

This essay was based on material mined in writing the official history of the Olympic Council of Ireland. In research for this project, Dr Dónal McAnallen and Pearse Reynolds made their respective theses available to this author. Their academic generosity is greatly appreciated. Thanks also to Pierce O'Callaghan who supplied a set of IAAF Handbooks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. For a detailed examination of this issue see Hunt 2015.

^2. National Library of Ireland (NLI), O'Duffy unsorted papers, Accession 5694, Box 3, File 29, The struggle for Irish athletic unity, 4.

^3. NLI, O'Duffy unsorted papers, The struggle for Irish athletic unity, 5.

^4. NLI, O'Duffy unsorted papers, The struggle for Irish Athletic unity, 7.

^5. Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), Cab. 9/b/160/1, RD Bates to Harry J Barclay, May 16, 1929. I am indebted to Dónal McAnallen for alerting me to the presence of this wonderful archive. At this stage, the northern body had yet to achieve any type of recognition so if policemen or army athletes competed under its auspices they risked suspension for competing in unsanctioned competition.

^6. PRONI, Cab. 9/b/160/1, Note from WJ Trueman, Ministry for Finance to CR Blackmore, secretary of NI Cabinet; H Pollock to Barclay, February 5, 1930.

^7. PRONI, Cab. 9/b/160/1, Barclay to Pollock, February 12, 1930.

^8. PRONI, Cab. 9/b/160/1, Lord Craigavon to Lord Desborough, March 19, 1930; Desborough to Craigavon, March 22, 1930.

^9. PRONI, Cab/9/b/160/1, Bates to Charles Wickham, July 2, 1929.

^10. PRONI, Cab. 9/b/160/1, Wickham to Pollock, July 8, 1929.

^11. PRONI, Cab. 9/b/160/1, Wickham to Blackmore, July 9, 1929.

^12. PRONI, Cab. 9/b/160/1, Minute of discussion between Pollock and Wickham, January 13, 1930.

^13. PRONI, Cab. 9/b/160/1, Correspondence from Bates to Wickham, January 11, 1930.

^14. NLI, O'Duffy unsorted papers, The struggle for Irish athletic unity, 8 and 9.

^15. National Archives (UK), HO 45, 15758; C462369. Minutes of meetings with Lord Desborough and Harold Abrahams concerning the relationship of the IAAF to athletics in the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland and related correspondence.

^16. Abrahams at this stage was a member of the General Committee of the AAA and one of the most influential figures in the sport. The Olympic 100 m champion of 1924 combined his professional career as a barrister with an incredible devotion to athletics. He was the voice of British athletics as a result of his broadcasting career with the BBC, his journalism with the Sunday Times and his authorship of several athletics books. He has been described as the architect of the modern laws of athletics (Lovesey, AAA, 175–177).

^17. NLI, O'Duffy unsorted papers, The struggle for Irish athletics unity, 16.

^18. NLI, O'Duffy unsorted papers, The struggle for Irish athletic unity, 17. Olympic champion, Dr Pat O'Callaghan had his suspension lifted as a result.

^19. NLI, O'Duffy unsorted papers, The struggle for athletic unity, 18–20.

^20. There is some irony attached to Peter O'Connor's position as he has earned a certain amount of infamy in Olympic history. At the Intercalated Games of 1906, O'Connor climbed a flag pole at the victory ceremony for the long jump competition and waved the tricolour in protest against the use of the Union Jack to mark his runner-up position.

^21. The Ulsterville, North Belfast, Duncairn Nomads, Albertville, 9th Old Boys and Queens' University clubs disaffiliated.

^22. National Archives (Ireland), DFA/6/415/32, Memo to Secretary Department of External Affairs, January 6, 1948.

^23. National Archives (Ireland), TSCH/3/S11053A Memorandum of meeting between NACAI and An Taoiseach and Minister for External Affairs, Eamon de Valera, January 23, 1939.