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I read one time that before that match some of the dignitaries including Collins had a bit of a puck around and that he (Colins) showed great skill at doubling on the ball overhead and seemed to be a proficient hurler. Doubling is the art of striking the ball in mid flight to drive it further on or to potentially score without catching or slowing the ball down and takes great skill and hand to eye coordination! Do you see the Kilkenny player on his mobile phone telling the folks back home that he has met the "Big Fella"?

Swordscookie A good story anyway (about the doubling)! Everyone I've shown this photo to has laughed about the Kilkenny player on "his mobile"... :)

I wonder if he actually played wearing those sock suspenders.

philip ward It is very odd. All of his team mates have proper thick knee length socks. Do you think he got on the train or bus to Dublin without his playing socks and had to wear his normal ones?

Given how difficult it was to travel in those days and the risks that were still there it may be that he was a former player who was pressganged into the role. It would not have been uncommon for less well off people to play in their street clothes and I saw matches in the 50's where guys in shirts, trousers and football boots played full games!

She hasn't changed much! Nice shot!

Nice Action Photo. Nice looking Athletes now 20 years flew by for them - - -

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/55597723@N02] And for us, a sobering thought.

I remember that! Not the opening of the Phoenix Park but the race that Sonia ran in that year. She was flying and put many fine male athletes far behind her. Great shot and a terrific way to remind us of the bounty that the Park has proven to be for people down through the centuries!

Great shot of one of my favourite athletes!

The bust on the right might provide a clue, unless they are in the habit of moving busts around at Trinity College Library.

Michiel2005 I'd doubt that they do! Presuming this is Socrates?

Possibly, but I suppose you have to visit TCL to be absolutely sure. Pictures of the Long Room are rare on the internet (as photography is not allowed there) and I don't remember it from my visit.

Tunney was very likely to visit the long room and would not have been out of place there at all at all!! Famously while training for his great battle against Jack Dempsey one of the great US boxing writers found him reading Shakespeare and wondered if it was just for effect? It wasn't! Tunney was intelligent, literate and very well read and more than just a bruiser. He has lots of relatives still in Ireland and they're no "daws" either!

Swordscookie And from what I read about him in the Irish Independent reports of the visit, he was also very shy and quiet, hence not easy to interview for the newsmen who were far more used to very extrovert sportsmen...