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Sports Archives

Window on the Past:
The Irish Bambino

In late 1990s baseball, home runs were everywhere. The balls were allegedly juiced. The sluggers were definitely juiced. Players who had been lanky rookies would later display cartoon-sized muscles,...

In 1908, as the world’s attention focused on the Olympic Games in London, Britain had decided again not to allow Ireland to field its own team, imperiously stating, “Ireland is not a nation.”...

℘℘℘ Four all-star hurling teams descended on the city of New York to battle it out for the top spot in the New York Hurling Classic 2019 in mid-November. Tipperary, Kilkenny, Wexford, and...

Join the Gaelic Players Association on Friday, November 15 for the annual Ireland-US Gaelic Heritage Awards & Dinner Gala. This night is always a great gathering of friends, who join together...

I hadn’t drank a brandy since 2009,” said Emily Scanlon, grandmother of golfer Shane Lowry, after Lowry won the 148th British Open Championship on Sunday, July 21, at Royal Portrush in Northern...

Fenway Park, the hallowed ground of the Boston Red Sox, was taken over by Irish players wielding sticks in what has been described as the world’s fastest game played on grass, on November 18. It...

The Chicago Patriots and Austin Celtic Cowboys struggle for the ball during the Intermediate Football Final. (Photographs by David Morgan, Stylish Images)

The passion, competition, and camaraderie of supporters and players of Gaelic games were on display at the USGAA Finals in Philadelphia over Labor Day Weekend. ℘℘℘ September is traditionally...

The Hoboken Guards of Hoboken, New Jersey won their first New York Senior Hurling Championship in August in New York’s Gaelic Park. They beat Tipperary New York by two goals and 29 points (2-29) to...

We are proud to present our new podcast series “The Story.” The first episode is hosted by Dave Lewis and details the annual big day for the New York GAA, its participation in the...

Four young doctors team up for a transatlantic row for a good cause. ℘℘℘ What takes 32 days, 22 hours and 5,500 kilometers to complete? If you’re the four young men who set a new record when...

The World Irish Dancing Championships were held in April in Glasgow, Scotland, and several Americans came away with medals in competition among the best youth dancers in the world. Peyton Clemons...

The USA Women’s National Hockey Team came away with their first gold medal since the sport was introduced to the games in 1998, beating Canada in the final round on February 22 in a 3-2 nail-biting...

Fifty years ago as of April 2018, the University of Notre Dame rugby club became the first team to represent the university in competition in Ireland. Tom Condon, then a senior on the squad, recalls...

With the Olympics closing ceremony this weekend, get to know the Irish competitors. Though none came away with medals, there was plenty of spirit to go around. ℘℘℘ The 2018 Winter Olympics,...

Tom McGrath, an ultra-distance runner, can often be seen running all over Manhattan, whether he’s running in Central Park or busy running his bar and restaurant. McGrath, 68, has stamina for it...

How the son of an Malaysian immigrant rose to stardom within Ireland’s top sports divisions. ℘℘℘ Lee Chin could quite possibly be the modern successor to Setanta (the given name of the Irish...

Tara Sullivan talks about her life in sports, Irish dance, and the memorable people along her road to becoming the Boston Globe’s newest sports writer. ℘℘℘ For twenty years Tara Sullivan...

History was made in Dublin’s Croke Park during the Lory Meagher Cup final in June, when the Leitrim senior hurling team took to the terrain for the first time against Warwickshire. Equally...

Does adapting the game for American viewers ruin the traditions of the ancient Gaelic sport? ℘℘℘ The Gaelic Players Association is an Irish not-for-profit organization that was created to...

Irish ambassador to the U.S. Anne Anderson joined the Washington Nationals baseball team at their home field of Nationals Park in May for Irish American Heritage Day, throwing out the first pitch of...

The sport of hurling will return to Fenway Park with a doubleheader in the AIG Fenway Hurling Classic and Irish Festival on November 19. The park last hosted a hurling event in 2015, bringing to an...

The Irish men’s national soccer team is set to square off against Mexico June 1 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. The friendly match, which won’t count towards either teams official international...

Waterford Greenway, the longest off-road walking and cycling path in Ireland, opened to the public at the end of March. Running 46km from Waterford City to Dungarvan and tracing the former route of...

Kevin White believes that his success and impact on collegiate sports is because of his Irish ancestry. “I am who I am, the diminutive pluses combined with the avalanche of minuses, because of my...

The Irish American baseball legend who introduced the concept of the opening day pitch by the President of the United States. ℘℘℘ James Robert, “Jimmy,” McAleer, the youngest of eight...

In February, 110 Irish men and women from Kildangan, County Tipperary converged on the New York midtown pub Slattery’s to help raise money for a new half-million euro community center, complete...

Dave Lewis explores the historical connections between the Gaelic Athletic Association, nationalism, and a heritage of hurling in County Tipperary. ℘℘℘ 2016 was a great year for Ireland as it...

Miracles happen in threes, but few foresaw this one coming when Ireland’s rugby team met the New Zealand All-Blacks in a historic match November 5 at Chicago’s Soldier Field, home to the Chicago...

Ireland had a reasonable showing at the 2016 Summer Olympics with two silver medals, including the country’s first for rowing (see right). But what about the Irish diaspora? How did the descendants...

Gary and Paul O’Donovan, of Lisheen, Co. Cork, made history at the Rio Olympic Games in August when they secured the country’s first ever medal in a rowing event. The brothers, who sped from...

Managing Babe Ruth, winning multiple World Series, and the no-nonsense authority of Bill “Rough” Carrigan. ℘℘℘ To control a brash young Babe Ruth – who joined the Boston Red Sox at age...

The Shannon Gaels GAA Club in New York is one step closer to building its field of dreams – a children’s playing field in Frank Golden Park in College Point, New York. In January, Minister for...

John McDermott is finally getting his due over a hundred years after he became the first American to win the U.S. Open national golf championship. Winning at the age of 19, he also remains the...

Middleweight champion John Duddy on hanging up his gloves. In 2011, John Duddy retired from boxing. Living in New York, the popular Derry native had compiled a 29-and-2 record with 18 knockouts....

Tom Coyne, whose 16-week jaunt through Ireland’s 38 seaside golf courses led to the best-selling book, A Course Called Ireland, has put together a list of 18 of his favorite quirky Irish golf...

John Morrisey and the Saratoga Springs Race Course in the early 1900s. Photos: Library of Congress.

As Saratoga Springs celebrates 150 years of thoroughbred racing, Liz O’Connell tells the tale of John Morrissey, an Irish immigrant who organized, operated and had the vision to develop what is now...

All they wanted was a chance for ten more days of football. Just before the end of the season, a quarter of the players and one of the coaches on the Xavier High School Knights had been forced from...

Coach Kelly, who led Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish through a perfect season (up until the BCS championship game), was named the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year by the Football Writers Association of...

The Hibernian legacy of the Giants baseball team. This year the San Francisco Giants won their second World Series in three years. Not since the days of John McGraw and their Irish heyday have the...

Irish America’s publisher, Niall O’Dowd, wrote from the Notre Dame vs. Navy football game in Dublin. In years to come, hardcore Notre Dame fans will ask “Were you there?” when this...

Five days of golf in Ireland’s southwest and a day of football in Dublin. I credit my brother-in-law Tom Coyne for inspiring my golf trip to Ireland. Not too long ago, Tom completed what can...

As Britain hosts the Summer Olympic Games in London, we look back on the first great modern Olympic confrontation between the United States – most of whose top athletes were Irish – and Britain,...

A stretch of 43rd Street and 48th Avenue in Sunnyside, Queens, received a second name on March 10. Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, it became Winged Fist Way, in honor of the Irish American...

In Dallas, Texas, it’s all about community and camaraderie over competition. Spurred by the success of the Celtic Cowboys, a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) league formed in Austin in 2004, Fionn...

The Red Sox and the City of Boston celebrate the 100th anniversary of one of America’s most beloved ballparks. Honey Fitz, aka John Francis Fitzgerald, would have loved the pageantry of “Fenway...

One of the premier track- and-field training facilities in the world in its time, Celtic Park produced more than two dozen Olympic medalists who collectively won more than 50 medals for the U.S....

Rory McIlroy was hitting 40-yard drives at the age of two. By eight he was the youngest full member of the Holywood Golf Club, which sits just outside of Belfast, and by 11 he was shooting level par...

The long and enduring relationship of two Irish-American sporting families. In 2008, when the New York football Giants capped a spectacular drive in the final two minutes of Super Bowl XLII to become...

Rory McIlroy was named RTE’s Irish Sports Person of the Year at a televised ceremony in Dublin. The 22-year-old golfer from Holywood, Co. Down capped a memorable year by winning the U.S. Open just...

Champion wheelchair racer Amanda McGrory tells Molly Ferns about her record-setting year and her plans for the 2012 London Paralympics. Few people begin a career at five years old. But Amanda...

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog) has confirmed that over 60 towns and villages in Northern Ireland will be included on the route for torchbearers carrying...

A new documentary dubbed as “Spellbound meets Mad Hot Ballroom, with a touch of Riverdance” As an Irish American who had a very culturally rich childhood, I may be something of an anomaly...

A look at the 2011 North American Irish Dance Competition in Nashville, Tennessee On the July 4th weekend, the Gaylord Opryland Convention Center in Nashville, just a stone’s throw from the Grand...

The first American golfer to win the U.S. Open — and the youngest. When Rory McIlroy walked down the 18th fairway at Congressional on June 19, the TV flashed a list of six young golfers who won...

The Old Head Golf Links in Kinsale, County Cork has been ranked by Links magazine as the most spectacular golf course on the planet (Spring 2011 edition). Truly one of the most unique golf courses...

The American Ireland Fund’s annual New York Gala Dinner was held on May 5th. More than 1,200 guests gathered in a tent at Lincoln Center on May 5, for the American Ireland Fund New York Dinner...

The real-life boxer behind the Oscar-nominated movie Eight years ago, Irish America magazine honored boxer Micky Ward as one of “The Irish 100.” Ward received his tribute at the annual Irish...

It is a mid-October Sunday morning at Notre Dame, right after the home victory against Pittsburgh. It was a close-run thing and the sense of relief around the Notre Dame campus is palpable. Nowhere...

The unlikely friendship between prizefighter Gene Tunney and dramatist George Bernard Shaw is explored in a new book by the boxer’s son, Jay Tunney. There are many books about famous literary...

Bestselling golf author Tom Coyne wrote about trekking across Ireland for 16 weeks in search of the greatest round of golf ever played. He shares his experience and excerpts from his book A Course...

Waveriders, the acclaimed documentary directed by Dublin native Joel Conroy and coming out on DVD March 16, is based around an unusual premise: modern-day surfing’s Irish-American roots. The...

More than two dozen sons of Irish immigrants, who played in the 1880-1920 period, are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Many other great Irish players have made their mark on...

Ireland, with 3,000 miles of open Atlantic to the West, offers some of the best surf conditions in the world. Sea Fever, a documentary, covers the history of Irish surfing from the early 1960s to the...

The Gaelic Athletic Association staged a spectacular fireworks dis- play at Croke Park in Dublin to commemorate its 125th anniversary since being founded in 1884 in Thurles, Co. Tipperary....

For 38 years, Stone Mountain Park, northeast of Atlanta, Georgia, fills with the sounds of bagpipes, fiddles and harps during the third weekend in October for the Stone Mountain Highland Games and...

Hard times are falling on communities across the country, and even in the affluent San Francisco area, belts are tightening and the economy is in decline. But on a recent December afternoon, on an...

I was fortunate to play the Old Head Golf Links on my most recent trip to Ireland. The Links is one of the most unique golf courses ever conceived. It is built on a 220-acre diamond of land,...

When I competed for the U.S. in my first Olympics in Helsinki in 1952, I was only 15, the youngest javelin thrower ever and that record still stands today. But the most wonderful part about...

If you drive across the mountain road that borders south Dublin, chances are you will see Padraig Harrington at work in the garden that serves as his office. Out the back of a modest but large...

When Bill Walsh took over the head coaching job of the San Francisco 49ers in the late 1970s, the team was among the worst in the National Football League. In just a few years, Walsh transformed...

Fenway Park – home of the Boston Red Sox – is the nation’s enduring symbol of baseball, America’s favorite pastime. Ofﬁcially opened on April 20, 1912, the park has outlasted all other...

The kid who helped propel the U.S. team to its miraculous 4-3 victory over the Soviets, giving the country a morale boost at the height of the Cold War in 1980, is now a star in the trading...

Tom Deignan reﬂects on a time when many of the Boys of Summer had a touch of the Irish brogue. A recent New York Times article about the consistent success of the Minnesota Twins baseball...

Cian O’Connor jumped for gold at the equestrian events in Athens to send the Irish tricolor aloft for the first time in the Olympic Games. The 24-year-old County Meath show jumper won the...

The first annual Inter-Continental Gaelic Athletic Association Youth Championships were held in Purchase, N.Y. at SUNY on July 24. G.A.A. fans from all over the U.S. attended. This slideshow requires...

The FDNY Cross Country Bike Tour is a ride across America by N.Y.C. firefighters cycling for the Widows’ & Childrens’ Fund. The 42-day event began in Los Angeles, California, on...

Natalie Coughlin, an Irish-American swimming champion, came back from a shoulder injury and a career hiatus to win five medals for the U.S.A. in Athens. ℘℘℘ Natalie Coughlin took the swimming...

Left to Right- Ger McDonnell and Mick Murphy.

With a record number of people trying to reach the summit of Mount Everest 50 years after it was first scaled, two Irish climbers, Cork man Mick Murphy and Ger McDonnell from Limerick reached the...

From King Kelly to Mark McGuire, Ron Kaplan traces the Irish influence in baseball. ℘℘℘ Irish ballplayers have helped to shape baseball ever since the game took its first foundering steps on...

“Irish” Mickey Ward takes on Arturo Gatti again for $1.2 million ℘℘℘ Mickey Ward is a fighter. That’s the first thing to know about him. Outside the ring, he’s soft...

The European Ryder Cup Team, which included several Irish players, triumphed over the United States in the 34th Ryder Cup held at the Belfry, North Warwickshire, England, in late September. Of the...

Special Olympics Gold medal winner Charles Whelan with Pat Fitzgerald (left) and Bob Hawkins (right), Chief Operating Officer with Special Olympics.

It is a logistical challenge, the likes of which Ireland has never seen before. Over a quarter of a million lunches will have to be made, 2,000 interpreters have to be found to speak more than 50...

Eamonn Coughlan finishes first in the 1500m at the World Track & Field Championships in Helsinki in 1983.

Eamonn Coughlan, Ray Flynn and Marcus O’Sullivan dominated middle-distance running in the eighties and early nineties. Paul Gains catches up with the three runners today. ℘℘℘ The images...

Irish International basketball star Susan Moran from Tullamore, Co. Offaly, has become the first Irish player to be signed by an American WNBA team. Moran who won a scholarship to St. Joseph’s...

Can an Irish horse win the prestigious Breeders Cup? ℘℘℘ In 1907 the Epsom gallery was horrified to see an Irish owned, Irish trained (if Berkshire bred) horse, Orby, storm to victory at...

On July 1st, 1920, my grandfather saved the only no-hitter ever thrown by the Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson. Grandpa played first base for the Washington Senators, and he and Johnson were in...

Rioting fans, hooliganism and remote and sometimes ugly multi-millionaires have given sports a bad name in recent times. But every now and then, the world of fun and games provides an uplifting...

A County Louth native battled frigid temperatures in Iowa to win the men’s 10,000 meter National College Athletic Association cross-country championship. Keith Kelly, a student at Providence...

Sonia’s Silver Ireland brought home only one Olympic medal from the Sydney Games. The country’s hopes for gold were dashed when runner Sonia O’Sullivan narrowly lost the...

Commencing with convicts, feared and despised, and followed by free immigrants and settlers, the Irish became the dynamic force in Australia’s evolution into a nation. ℘℘℘ The eyes...

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