Barney O’Sullivan (1899-1978) was Irish champion in 1939 and 1946. A version of the drawing above appeared on Mark Orr’s TICA (The Irish Chess Archive) website, and is in one of the ICU pages on him.
As noted in the TICA page, the author of the sketch is still unknown. It seems to have been done shortly after Barney’s second Irish championship win in 1946. However, we can say much more about its provenance.
The picture comes from Bill Egan (Liam Mac Aodhagáin on the left side in the photo above), who wrote to Desmond Beatty in November 2024:
I am the original source of the image of Barney O’Sullivan which can be seen at https://www.icu.ie/articles/69 which image I contributed to an earlier Irish chess history website, now defunct.
It is the only known extant image of Barney and it was on the inside cover of Barney’s personal copy of Basic Chess Endings.
As I said in my book The Doeberl Cup: Fifty Years of Australian Chess History:
“As a keen young chess player in Ireland in the mid fifties I was acquainted [actually I was interned with him in the Curragh] with the former Irish champion and international player Barney O’Sullivan. When I pestered Barney to give me some coaching, he gave me a large pile of Australian chess magazines and told me they contained all I needed to know. They were copies of Chess World and Australian Chess Review and he was, of course, referring to Purdy’s marvellous analytical and instructive reports and commentaries.”
Barney had also loaned me his copy of BCE and in the confused circumstances of the closing of the Curragh I was not able to return it, and never got another chance.
Bill Egan is a long-time Canberra chess player and administrator. He served for many years as either President of the ACT Chess Association, or the Chairman of the Doeberl Cup (Australia’s longest-running weekend tournament) Organizing Committee, as well as playing in most Doeberl Cups since the 1960s. He is the author of The Doeberl Cup: Fifty Years of Australian Chess History, an account of the events from 1963 to 2012.
He was born in Drumcondra, Co. Dublin, in 1937. He was a founder of a Dún Laoghaire C.C., a predecessor of the current club, and was a member of the team that won one of the first O’Hanlon Trophy seasons in 1959-60. He left Ireland for Canberra in 1966, and apart from short times, stayed there ever since.
Though he has a peak FIDE rating of 1795, he has the distinction of a CM title, which he earned, aged 76, at the Oceania Zonal in Fiji in 2013.
Bill has sent me the original volume of Basic Chess Endings, for which many thanks. I’m holding it on behalf of the ICU.
