Tailteann Games (Irish Free State)

The Tailteann Games were held shortly after the Summer Olympics, such that athletes participating in Paris 1924 and Amsterdam 1928 came to compete.

Participants coming from England, Scotland, Wales, Canada, the USA, South Africa and Australia as well as Ireland.

[2] This revival "meeting of the Irish race" was announced by Éamon de Valera in Dáil Éireann in 1921.

The possibility of out-doing the Olympic Games was mentioned: "We have got representations from America to the effect that it would be advisable to depart from the idea of confining the Tailteann games to the Irish race and seeing that they predated the Greek Olympic by a thousand years we should be justified in entering upon a more varied programme.

"[5] The first games were held in August 1922, with JJ Walsh, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, as chair and Catherine Gifford Wilson, BA as secretary to the organisation.

[7] The ode won Gogarty a bronze medal in the literature section of the 1924 Olympic art competition.

The Irish flag was carried by Tom Kiely, winner of the 1904 Olympic all-around (decathlon) title.

[8] To increase the quality of the competition, some Olympic stars without Irish heritage were invited to compete as guests.

In hurling, teams from England, Wales, the United States, Scotland, and Ireland played.

Some competitions such as band contests were held in Ballsbridge and some were in the Metropolitan Hall in Lower Abbey Street.

The American Harold Osborn, the 1924 Olympic high jump champion, won the same event in the Tailteann Games at Croke Park.

A banquet presided over by T. M. Healy, the Governor-General of the Irish Free State, had an "oddly assorted" group of guests invited by Yeats, including Augustus John, Sir Edwin Lutyens, writers Compton Mackenzie, G. K. Chesterton, Lennox Robinson, and Carlos Magalhães de Azeredo; cricketers Ranjitsinhji and C. B. Fry; and diplomats Willem Hubert Nolens and Erik Palmstierna.

[21] An art and craft exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy displayed 1,597 works, more than half entered for competition in 32 categories.

[23] Other gold medallists included Margaret Clarke, Francis Doyle Jones, Letitia Hamilton, Power O'Malley, and Patrick Tuohy.

[23] At the Theatre Royal two recent operas by Irish composers were performed: Geoffrey Molyneux Palmer's Sruth na Maoile (1922) and Harold White's Seán the Post (1924), along with Shamus O'Brien (1896) by Charles V.

[26] At the awards ceremony in the Iveagh Gardens, the pageant The Coming of Fionn by Seamus MacCall was staged.

The Games' main backer, minister J. J. Walsh, lost office when Fianna Fáil took power after the 1932 election, and public funding was cut.

Against a background of the Great Depression and the Anglo-Irish Trade War, the Games cut from two weeks to one; they made a £12 profit.

Nesbitt; Echo, Mr. R. Hall; Anita, Mr. J. Millar; Oona, Dr. D & Miss Douglas; Deilginis, Capt.

Twohig; Rosemay, Messrs. Sterling & Thompson; Silver Moon (carried away her masthead before the preparatory gun).

Mrs. Donolly; Mollie, Dr & Mrs Henry; Blue Bird, Dr. G. Pugin; Amyl, Mr. & Mrs. Shackleton; Nesta, A.W.

De Valera used the split in Irish athletics governance as an excuse to defer consideration, to the chagrin of J. J. Walsh.