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[from the Appletree Press title John McNally - Boxing's Forgotten Hero published by Appletree Press]
THE LONG ROCKY ROAD TO HELSINKIThe one who waits for a fine day will get a fine day.According to an ancient Greek legend, the Olympic Games were founded by Herakles, one of the sons of Zeus. The first Games for which a written record exists were held in 776BC, where a naked cook from Elis, named Coroebus, won the main event – a sprint known as the Stade. Thus, it is generally accepted in history that Coroebus was the first-ever Olympic champion. In ancient Greece, the Olympic Games were the highlight of the social calendar where each event was considered to be almost sacred. To win an Olympiad was the closest that a mere mortal could come to being considered godlike whilst still living on Earth. In fact, the Games were considered so important that a sacred truce was called throughout Greece, so that the festivities could take place in peace and harmony. All wars stopped and ambassadors negotiated many treaties between feuding cities during the Games. The Games grew in importance throughout Roman times as a means of promoting friendship and goodwill among peoples. A tradition grew of awarding champions with a wreath of olive leaves as a sign of peace and hope. The Games continued for over a millennium until in 393AD a Christian Roman Emperor, Theodosius I, put an end to the event. This was due to their perceived pagan influences, in that they promoted prostitution and other sorts of ‘ungodly acts’ and vice among the many thousands of spectators – and athletes – that descended on the event. That, as they say, was that for approximately 1500 years, as the notion of the Olympic Games was lost in the mists of time. In the 1880s a French aristocrat by the name of Pierre de Coubertin instigated a revival of the Olympic ideal. Known as ‘Le Rénovateur’, de Coubertin was convinced that many of the ills of the French nation were due to a ‘lack of vigour’ among its general population. After studying the education systems of Britain, Germany and America, he became convinced that sport and exercise were the keys to industrial and military greatness. A scholar of note, Coubertin was aware of the ancient Olympic Games and through endless campaigning, arm-twisting and persuasion, he eventually saw his dream come to reality in Athens in the first week of April 1896. Those Games were a legacy far removed from the celebration of humanity we know today as the Olympics. Contestants did not represent nations as such but were chosen – or invited – to attend at their own expense. Indeed, some contestants were tourists who just happened to be in Greece at the time of the Games. Ireland’s early participants in the Olympic Games saw them compete under the guise of Great Britain whilst the political battles surrounding Home Rule weakened the linkages across the Irish Sea. Historically, the first Irishman to win an Olympic gold medal was John Pius Boland, who won gold medals at both the 1896 tennis singles and doubles events. His feat at the Games in Athens, at a time when competing at the Games was the preserve of the privileged, was monumental in its day. Later, he returned to Ireland where he became a Member of Parliament for the constituency of South Kerry. Boland’s achievements were for many years credited as gold medals for Britain, but it is now accepted that his achievements were the first of Ireland’s Olympic titles. Other notable ‘Irish’ medallists included John Jesus Flanagan who was born in the year 1873 in the town of Kilbreedy, Co. Limerick. In 1897, at the age of twenty-four, he was considered to be the world record holder in the hammer event and in that year, he emigrated to the United States. At the Paris Olympics in 1900, Flanagan, representing the United States, took gold and followed this feat by defending his title easily at the 1904 Games in St Louis. At the London Games of 1908, Flanagan made it a hat trick of gold medals when he beat then-world record holder – and fellow Irish-American – Matt McGrath into second place. When it came to achievements that were purely ‘Irish’ in origin, the name of Tom Kiely, who claimed gold in the ‘All Round Championship’ at the 1904 Games, is considered to have been the most famous. Born in 1869 in the town of Ballyneale, just outside the Co. Tipperary town of Carrick-on-Suir, Kiely’s event was the forerunner to the modern-day decathlon. Representing Great Britain, and competing in ten events in one day, his achievement made him an instant superstar in Ireland and beyond. With Partition in 1921, the island was divided into two entities, namely the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. However, whilst the border was created, many sporting bodies, including boxing, were still organised on an all-island basis, though in the North sports such as athletics chose to affiliate with Great Britain. In 1924 the International Olympic Committee [IOC] formally recognised the Irish Free State and subsequently Ireland competed in that year’s Paris Games. Strangely, the Olympics in those days catered for a wider variety of skills: while the country did not win medals in any of the sporting pursuits, Jack B. Yeats claimed a silver medal for his painting entitled Swimming, whilst, in literature, Oliver St John Gogarty claimed bronze for his poem ‘Ode to the Tailteann Games’. In boxing, Paddy Dwyer was beaten in the semi-final of the welterweight division by the eventual gold medallist Jean Delarge. However, it was not until 1952 that both beaten semi-finalists in boxing were to be awarded bronze medals, and Dwyer was beaten into fourth place after a box-off for bronze. In the 1928 Games held in Amsterdam, Ireland claimed a first-ever medal in its own right. The man who took the honours in the hammer event was a Corkman by the name of Dr Pat O’Callaghan. Whilst he travelled – at his own expense – more in hope than expectation, O’Callaghan (whose older brother Con was competing in the decathlon) excelled in his event to beat the English favourite Malcolm Noakes and the Swede Ossian Skiöld. O’Callaghan entered the realm of Olympic greats when he repeated his heroics four years later and took gold in the Los Angeles Games. Those Games were a triumph for Ireland as Bob Tisdall, who was born in 1907 in Ceylon, of Anglo-Irish parentage, claimed gold in the 400 metres hurdles. In his opening heat Tisdall equalled the Olympic record and in the final, despite stumbling at the final hurdle, won the gold medal in a world-record time of 51.7 seconds. The rules in those days stated that if an athlete knocked over a hurdle then the time could not be considered. Tisdall was denied the record, but not the gold. In 1936, for the first and only time since Independence, Ireland was precluded from taking part in an Olympic Games due to a dispute with the International Amateur Athletic Federation. However, the Berlin Olympic Games were overshadowed by the spectre of Adolf Hitler and the supremacist ideology of Nazi Germany. The Nazis saw the Olympic ideal as further means of promoting their fascist philosophy, and no expense was spared in pursuit of this aim. The Nazi propaganda machine – under the direction of Joseph Goebbels – went into overdrive and the Olympic ideal was tested to the extreme as the Germans excluded Jewish athletes from their team. Despite the threat of a boycott, the United States decided to participate and Jesse Owens became the man who destroyed the supremacist lie by taking four gold medals, to the dismay of the Führer. The onset of World War II meant that no Games were held until a battle-scarred London hosted the Olympics in 1948. Ireland competed but not at athletics, and no medals were won, despite the heroics of boxer Mick McKeon, who lost to Great Britain’s John Wright in the semi-final of the middleweight class. By 1952, Ireland was fighting to establish itself on the world stage as a creditable international entity. The animosity with its neighbour Britain had festered throughout the Second World War as Ireland declared itself neutral, much to the dismay of Winston Churchill and the Stormont Government in the North. The legacy of this falling out was still to the fore as the ‘Free State’ declared itself a Republic in 1949. Helsinki represented an important departure for the Republic of Ireland as she made her debut on the world stage as a truly independent country. John McNally, from Belfast in Northern Ireland, was picked to represent the Republic of Ireland. The 1937 Constitution of Ireland laid claim to the whole island of Ireland on behalf of the Irish Free State and the sport of boxing was organised on this basis. Sport and politics in Ireland have always been an uneasy match, but boxing by and large escaped any such controversy. However, at an official level, McNally representing ‘a foreign country’ created a dilemma. The government and unionist media in the North would toe the political line and concentrate on how the Great Britain team was faring, with McNally’s progress warranting a footnote at best. Times have changed in Belfast today, but in 1952 representing Ireland at the Olympic Games was something that was frowned upon by the Northern powers that were. Read the previous Chapters : Chapter 1 Chapter 2
From the Appletree Press title: John McNally - Boxing's Forgotten Hero by Barry Flynn. |
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