Evolution of Irish National Records 1861-2020 Event Note Athlete Competition Venue Date
Evolution of Irish National Records 1861-2020 Event Note Athlete Competition Venue Date The task of developing a table of the Progression of the Irish National Records, from before the birth of organised Athletics in the late 19th Century up to the present day, inevitably presents the compilers with a number of difficult problems. First, of course, is the difficulty that arises from the existence of parallel governing organisations during significant periods of this history and the practice of their maintaining non co-ordinated sets of records. We have also needed to recognise that up until almost the last quarter of the 20th century performances achieved outside Ireland were not accorded status as Irish National Records. Thus, most notoriously perhaps, the winning performances of Bob Tisdall and Ron Delany at the Olympics of 1932 and 1956 were never, in their day, recognised as Irish Records. But there were many others, perhaps less prominent, which because they were achieved outside Ireland were never subjected to those levels of appropriate scrutiny which are customarily accorded to Irish record performances. A further problem arises from the fact that until sometime in the early-1930s the National Record was deemed to be the best authenticated performance made in Ireland whether by a local athlete or by an overseas visitor. Thus an Official List of Records published, for example, in 1924 credited Irish Records to Wyndham Halswelle (SCO., 440y), Hugh Welsh (SCO.,1 Mile), Alvin Kraenzlein (USA, 120yH), and Ralph Rose (USA, Shot Putt). The particular significance of this in the context of our project is that, therefore, a performance by an Irish athlete superior to an earlier Irish Record but inferior to that achieved by an overseas athlete, was not considered for ratification and so, not subjected to the higher levels of scrutiny customarily applied when considering whether to award the accolade of “Irish Record” to a particular performance.
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