Category Archives: Irish champions

The internment of John O’Hanlon

On June 10, 1922, one hundred years ago today, John O’Hanlon, Irish champion since 1913, was arrested in Portadown. A report appeared in the Belfast News-Letter the following Monday (page 5): ARRESTS IN PORTADOWN In the early hours of Saturday … Continue reading

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Rynd – Baker, Armstrong Cup 1907-08

The sixth Irish champion was Philip Baker, 1879-1932, who won in 1924, 1927, 1928 and 1929. A recent blog post Philip Baker, the Jewish refugee from Latvia who became Irish chess champion, by Patrick Comerford (October 22, 2020) gives very … Continue reading

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Barnett – Whitmarsh, Imperial v Lensbury Match 1925

by Lafayette (Lafayette Ltd), whole-plate film negative, 18 October 1929 By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40802266 Richard Whieldon Barnett, 1863-1930, the 1886 Irish champion, was described by Gerald Abrahams in Not Only Chess (London, 1974) as follows: “[T]he late Sir … Continue reading

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Richard Whieldon Barnett and the Irish Championship 1886

The build-up for the 100th Irish championship is underway, and the ICU has had the nice idea of extending the now-usual profiles of the contestants to include all previous champions, over 100 days. As I write, the build-up includes the … Continue reading

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Littleton at the 1969 Praia da Rocha Zonal

In his post on the high quality photograph of Michael Littleton playing at the World Championship Zonal at The Hague in 1966, Sean pointed out the much improved result Littleton achieved in the following World Championship qualifying process at the 1969 Zonal at … Continue reading

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Irish Championship 1949

Following up on the last two posts, a full report on the Irish Championship 1949 has been added to the tournament sections here, including all 7 of Paddy Kennedy’s games. These games and the two in the previous posts make … Continue reading

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Kennedy – Heelan, Sexton Cup 1948

As David remarked in the last post, very few of Paddy Kennedy’s games survive. I wasn’t aware of any other than his games from the 1949 Irish championship before seeing David’s discovery, but the post prompted me to check other … Continue reading

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Paddy Kennedy correspondence game

We have previously posted about Patrick Brendan Kennedy’s victory in the 1949 Irish Championship. As that article pointed out, all seven of his games from that event are in the ICU database, but beyond those very few others appear to … Continue reading

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Irish champions

A new page listing all Irish champions, in descending order of number of championships won, has been added.

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P. B. Kennedy and the Irish Championship 1949

The Irish Championship of 1949, held in Galway, ended 70 years ago today. The event was a 7-round Swiss—the first time the Swiss system was used for an Irish Championship–with 16 players. The field included the defending champion, Dónal J. … Continue reading

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