Following on from our recent post O’Hanlon at the 1940 Irish Championship, we have now compiled, in our usual format, a full report on that Championship.
Originally a ten-player tournament was planned, but at the last moment the Ulster players A.L. Davies and J.D. Peebles had to withdraw due to travel difficulties, leaving a field of eight.
In the absence of the title-holder Barney O’Sullivan, the favourites were reckoned in the press previews to be previous eight-time winner J.J. O’Hanlon and two much younger players – the 1940 Leinster Champion Gerard Kerlin (finishing ahead of five of his rivals for the 1940 Irish title), and the former Munster title-holder Austin Bourke. However Bourke had been stationed at Foynes Airport in County Limerick since joining the newly-founded Irish Meteorological Service in late-1938 and might be handicapped by a lack of strong practice there compared to his student days at University College Cork.
Charles J. Barry was in the veteran category alongside O’Hanlon, having faced off with him in the Preliminary Match in the first Irish Chess Union-organised Championship in 1913. Barry had qualified for that event as the Leinster Champion – he won five Leinster titles between 1912 and 1934 and was to win two more, in 1942 (ahead of Bourke and Kerlin) and 1945. To him however, fell probably the most embarrassing blunder of the tournament.
Warwick Nash (White) -v- Charles J. Barry (Black)
Irish Championship, Dublin (Round 4) 16 July 1940
Position after Black’s 22nd move
23. Qc7 Nc5? 24. Qxa5 1-0
[Click here to replay the entire game] and [here for the full report]