Irish Schools Athletics Champions 1916-2017 Updated December 2017
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Irish Schools Athletics Champions 1916-2017 Updated December 2017 To be forgotten is to die twice In February 1916 Irish Amateur Athletic Association (IAAA) circularised the principal schools in Ireland regarding the advisability of holding Schoolboys’ Championships. At the IAAA’s Annual General Meeting held on Monday 3rd April, 1916 in Wynne’s Hotel, Dublin, the Hon. Secretary, H.M. Finlay, referred to the falling off in the number of affiliated clubs due to the number of athletes serving in World War I and the need for efforts to keep the sport alive. Based on responses received from schools, the suggestion to hold Irish Schoolboys’ Championships in May was favourably considered by the AGM and the Race Committee of the IAAA was empowered to implement this project. Within a week a provisional programme for the inaugural athletics meeting to be held at Lansdowne Road on Saturday 20th May, 1916 had been published in newspapers, with 7 events and a relay for Senior and 4 events and a relay for Junior Boys. However, the championships were postponed "due to the rebellion" and were rescheduled to Saturday 23rd September, 1916, at Lansdowne Road. In order not to disappoint pupils who were eligible for the championships on the original date of the meeting, the Race Committee of the IAAA decided that “a bona fide schoolboy is one who has attended at least two classes daily at a recognised primary or secondary school for three months previous to 20th May, except in case of sickness, and who was not attending any office or business”. The inaugural championships took place in ‘quite fine’ weather. The honours on the day were divided between Cork Grammar School and Belvedere College with five champions each and Mountjoy School with three wins. The IAAA had special medals struck for the occasion. Under the auspices of the IAAA the Irish Schools’ Championships were conducted with Junior and Senior divisions through 1922. With the formation of the National Athletic and Cycling Association of Ireland (NACAI) as the National Governing Body for athletics in July 1922 through the amalgamation of the IAAA and the Athletic Council of the GAA, direction of the now titled “All-Ireland Schools and Colleges Championships” fell under its auspices. Age categories [Juvenile (Minor), Junior and Senior] and events within each category were redefined. The championships moved from Lansdowne Road to Croke Park annually. The Intermediate age category was introduced in 1928. By that year the number of events had expanded to 27 overall – Juvenile 3, Junior 6, Intermediate 11 and Senior 7. At the NACAI Congress in January 1931, the Juvenile Class was discontinued and the Senior category was changed to Youths, in essence amalgamating the separate Youth Championships and the Senior Schools Championships. The split in Irish athletics in the 1930’s between the NACAI and the Northern Ireland Amateur Athletic Association (NIAAA), which eventually involved the world athletics governing body, the IAAF, impinged on participation in Schools Championships. No schools from Ulster took part from 1932 through 1936, although an Ulster Secondary Schools Sports meeting was held annually. The idea of an All-Ireland Schools Athletic Union was first mooted by the Co Dublin Schools’ Union in late October 1936 at its AGM. The motion passed provided for a Union controlled by County or Provincial Committees, selected by representatives of schools, and holding their own provincial championships and other inter-school competitions. At the annual NACAI Congress in February 1937 a motion was passed: “That the Annual Congress of the NACAI invites closer cooperation of the schools and colleges in the development of athletics and that, with a view to the furtherance of this object, the Congress desires to hand over the control of the All-Ireland Schools and Colleges Championships to a properly constituted Schools' Athletic Union". Furtherance of a Schools’ Athletic Union developed rapidly. At a meeting of the Co Dublin Schools’ Union in March 1937, this body was translated into the Leinster Schools Athletic Union. This meeting was presided over by Mr Patrick Lynch, Attorney General, who indicated that their Union was controlled by headmasters for boys in their schools and had nothing to do with an athletic association for the control of athletics for adults. While the Leinster Union had no objection to an NACAI representative, it was made clear that the Leinster Union could not speak for the proposed All-Ireland Union. The rustication of the NACAI by the IAAF as the NGB in April 1937 obviated this particular issue. The NACAI conceded that schoolboys who were members of clubs which had resigned from the NACAI were entitled to compete for their respective institutions in schools & colleges championships. By the middle of May 1937 Munster and Connacht Schools' Athletic Unions had been formed and an Ulster Union was in train. Provincial championships were held in 1937. While it had been hoped to hold the inaugural All-Ireland Schools’ Championships under the auspices of an All-Ireland Union in 1937, this proved to be impractical given the limited stage of development of the Provincial Unions, the need to align provincial constitutions, examinations and holidays. On 11 December, 1937 in Jury’s Hotel, Dublin, delegates of the Connacht, Leinster and Munster Schools’ Unions formed the All-Ireland Schools’ Athletic Union. The inaugural championships took place at Blackrock College, Dublin on 28 May, 1938, with three qualifiers per event per province, but without Ulster. All-Ireland Schools’ Championships were suspended from 1941 through 1946, although provincial championships took place. There was, however, a determination that, after the clouds of war had passed, the Union would assume greater National status, with Ulster Schools augmenting the championships and thereby forging links throughout the island of Ireland, and would maintain its independence and freedom of allegiance to any other organisation. Interprovincial Schools Championships resumed with a Leinster Schools v Ulster Schools contest at the Iveagh Grounds Dublin in June 1947. The first quadrangular Interprovincial Championships, again at the Iveagh Grounds, Crumlin, took place on 3 July 1948, with two representatives per event per province. From 1938 through 1953, the Royal College of Science Cup was presented to the winning province, with the school contributing most points to a province’s win holding the trophy for that year. In 1949 Ulster Schools withdrew reportedly over a clash of dates, but athletic politics and political boundaries intervened, as a result of which Ulster Schools did not compete again in the All-Ireland Championships until 1967. Interprovincial championships remained part of the annual All-Ireland Schools’ Championships through 1957, although from 1954 the Royal College of Science Cup was presented to the best overall school irrespective of the winning province, Garbally College, Ballinasloe, becoming the first school from the West of Ireland to lift the trophy on that occasion. The inaugural All-Ireland Schools' Cross-Country Championships for boys took place at St Joseph's College, Garbally Park, Ballinasloe, Co Galway in 1964. A name change from All-Ireland Schools’ Athletic Union to Irish Secondary Schools’ Athletic Organisation/Federation, later Association, appears to have taken place at its AGM in December 1962 or January 1963, removing the word “Union” as a positive contribution towards associating the four provinces, but in particular schools’ athletics in Ulster, in All-Ireland Schools’ championships. At this time the Universities were actively involved in asserting the non- aligned nature of intervarsity competition while attempting at the same time to break down barriers between the NACAI and Amateur Athletic Union of Eire (AAUE) through athletic meetings involving athletes from both bodies. At the AGM of the ISSAA in February 1966 it was announced that the Ulster Secondary Schools Athletic Organisation was reaffiliating to the ISSAA. The formation of Bord Lúthchleas na hÉireann in 1967 reopened the doors to All-Ireland Schools’ and intervarsity competition. Given that National Track & Field and Cross Country Championships for women were not formally introduced by the AAUE until 1966, it is not unsurprising that Schools’ Track & Field Championships for girls were not inaugurated until 1970. The time lapse in the introduction of female athletic championships can be traced back to 1934 when the Reverend John Charles McQuaid, then President of Blackrock College, later Catholic Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, asserted that “mixed athletics and all cognate immodesties are abuses that right-minded people reprobate, wherever and whenever they exist”, further declaring that women competing in the same sporting arenas with men was “un-Irish and un-Catholic”, and that mixed athletics were a “social abuse” and a “moral abuse”. The 1980’s and 1990’s saw expansion of the range of events for girls as sports medicine indicated that these athletic disciplines were not injurious to female health. The first ISSA Junior Tailteann Games took place in Croke Park on 28 September, 1963, encompassing fourteen events in four age groups. The Irish Schools Inter-Provincial Championships were embraced by the athletics section of the Tailteann Games in 1975 for under-16 year-olds. Nowadays the Schools’ Tailteann Interprovincial Championships are contested by U17 intermediate athletes. Thanks to an enlightened approach on the island, the first Schools’ Track & Field quadrangular match involving an All-Ireland Schools’ team representative of the island of Ireland took place on Saturday 20 July, 1968 at Connah’s Quay, near Chester. Ireland finished third behind England and Scotland, the only Irish win coming in the triple jump by John Magee, the team captain from Castleknock College. The quadrangular match switched from Senior boys and girls to Intermediate (U17) boys and girls in 1974. The first Schools’ Cross Country International was a triangular match with Scotland and Wales for Senior (U19 on August 1st) boys and girls held at Clydebank on 25 March 1972.