Lords of the Rings: the GAA’s Olympic Story is a new five-part podcast series that looks at the fascinating links between Gaelic games and the Olympics, featuring some of the many players who have won gold, silver and bronze while competing on the biggest stage in world sport.
Hosted by award-winning Sunday Times journalist and author Michael Foley and GAA journalist and historian Cian Murphy, they are joined by a panel of experts to look at some of the truly weird and wonderful aspects of the GAA link to the Olympics and recall some of the forgotten heroes who played hurling and football and became some of the greatest athletes in the world.
This year marks the centenary of Team Ireland’s participation in the Olympics. Limerick’s JJ Keane secured that involvement, arguably Ireland’s greatest sports administrator. Keane successfully oversaw the GAA’s passing of the baton of athletics administration to a new National Athletic and Cycling Association of Ireland in 1922.
A member of the GAA’s Central Council and an All-Ireland football winner with Dublin, Keane’s ally in the new Free State government in promoting sport was JJ Walsh, a former Cork GAA Chairman.
In Paris in 1924, High jumper Larry Stanley was an All-Ireland champion with Kildare and later Dublin, while Mayo footballer Sean Lavin was the man credited with inventing the solo run.
Long before 1924, however, the GAA link to athletic excellence was well established. Its first President, Maurice Davin, was chosen, in part, because of his status as a renowned weight thrower.
Edmund Barrett of Ballyduff in Kerry won an All-Ireland senior hurling medal in 1901, representing London, and was later part of the City of London police team that won gold in 1908 in the tug of war. He also won a bronze in wrestling – making him the sole holder of All-Ireland and Olympic gold medals.
Forced emigration brought many GAA athletes to Britain, the US and Canada where they were able to successfully revive their careers. Others, like James Mitchell, were prominent players in the GAA-sponsored US Invasion Tour of 1888 who opted not to return to Ireland and would go on to land Olympic success.
John McGough was born in Ireland, raised in Scotland and worked as a physical fitness coach for Celtic and Manchester United. He ran the Olympic 1500m in 1906 and later trained the Cavan team that won the Sam Maguire at the Polo Grounds in New York in 1947.
Then there was the great Tom Kiely of Ballyneale in Tipperary, who was a Tipperary and Grangemockler footballer, sometime hurler and GAA Central Council representative who was also regarded as the greatest athlete in the world in his heyday. He was a gold medal winner as an all-rounder in 1904 in St Louis. Resisting offers to officially represent Great Britain and the US, Kiely declared himself to be representing Tipperary and Ireland.
On the first eight occasions that the hammer event was staged in the Olympics, there were seven first-place finishes for Irish-born athletes with GAA links, and the Gaelic games connection continued in Olympic history, right up to the 2024 team with 1500m medal hopeful European champion and Portaferry camogie player, Ciara Mageean.
Michael Foley previously produced popular podcasts for the GAA on the Croke Park Bloody Sunday centenary in The Bloodied Field in 2020 and last year with the Summer of 98.
Olympic historians and authors Kevin McCarthy and Tom Hunt and Cultural Historian and author Siobhán Doyle and Irish Times athletics correspondent Ian O’Riordan shine a light on the great stories illuminating the GAA and its Olympics link in this year of milestones.
Lords of the Rings: The GAA’s Olympics Story is a podcast available from gaa.ie, Spotify and usual platforms, produced by Andrew Foley and GAA Digital Manager Niamh Boyle.
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