Ireland’s record at Women’s Olympiads had an outstanding start at the first such event, Emmen 1957, when the team of Hilda Chater and Beth Cassidy finished equal 14th-15th out of 21, ahead of France, Austria, Finland, Norway, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Ireland sent no team to the following two events, in 1963 and 1966, but in 1969 the team of Mai Branagan (Rathmines), Aileen Noonan (Collegians), and Elizabeth Shaughnessy (Collegians) travelled to Lublin, Poland for the fourth Women’s Olympiad. Contemporary newspaper reports record that they paid for their own travel and hotels; I hope this has changed since then.
The event was organised as a 15-team all-play-all, with matches over two boards. The runaway winners were the Soviet Union, whose squad comprised the reigning Women’s Word Champion Nona Gaprindashvili (of Georgia); her challenger in 1965, 1969, and 1972 Alla Kushnir; and future challenger Nana Alexandria (also of Georgia).The next seven places were filled by the remaining Eastern European countries: Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, East Germany, Romania, and Poland. The Western European countries followed: England, West Germany, Denmark, Austria, and Belgium, with Ireland finishing in last place.
All of the countries that finished ahead of Ireland in 1969 also did so this year. (Or their main analogies did, in the case of the countries that have split or merged since then.)
No games from the event appear in the ICU games archive as of the date of this post, but all games have long been available at OlimpBase. The Irish games have been uploaded here.
Ireland’s only win came in a dramatic game by Aileen Noonan against the then-three-times Austrian Women’s Champion Ingeborg Kattinger. The twists and turns must largely be attributable to time trouble. Earlier Noonan had had a nominal advantage but no viable way of making progress. After breaking open the position, she was objectively lost; was this an error or a gamble based on her opponent’s time trouble?
37. ?
Here 37. Qc8 would have left Black with nothing better than taking the perpetual. Instead Noonan erred with 37. Rxf4?. After 37… Rd1+ 38. Ke2, 38… Qd3 would have been mate, but Kattinger instead played 38… Qd2+. After 39. Kf3 Qxf4+ 40. Ke2, Kattinger, on the last move before the time control, missed 40… Qf1+ and mate next move, instead playing 40… Rd2+.
This should still have been enough to win, and with the time control met should have been no problem. The game continued 41. Ke1 Rd8 42. Ke2 Qd2+ 43. Kf3 Rd3+?, throwing away the win (43… Qf4+ 44. Ke2 Rd2+ 45. Ke1 Qf2+ 46. Qxf2 Rxf2 wins easily) 44. Kg4 Qf4+? (44… Qh6 was now essential to survive) 45. Kh5 Rd8 46. Qe7 and Black resigned.