Sad Day For The Irish

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28540, 20 March 1958, Page 13

Sad Day For The Irish

M ’Twas a sad day for the Irish at the St. Patrick’s sports in Cornwall Park,” said the “New Zealand Herald” this week. “Muscular Murphys, Muldoons, and Moloneys heaved mightily in the shot put, but the event was won by a heavy-weight ring-in, Mr Ken Solomon. “Mr Solomon is a Maori. “Apart from this tragedy, the programme went more or less according to plan. The mile race, allegedly won in 4min lOsec last year, must have taken closer to Bmin this time, although the announcer discreetly refrained from broadcasting the time. The leader for the first lap was a man wearing hob-nailed boots. “One of the competitors in the event was Mr Billy Walsh, the Irish international footballer, who convinced everyone that the mile is not his forte. “New Zealand-born spectators were bemused by an exhibition of Gaelic football, which to the uninitiated seemed to be a cross between basketball, Soccer, and Rugby.

“ ‘Wait till yer see the hurling,’ they were told by their Irish friends. Hurling, they gathered, * was the greatest sport on earth — a mixture of all-in wrestling, hockey, and judo, with the team drawing the most blood the winner. It was the feature event on the programme. “They waited, and waited, and waited. The tug of war came and went, and the 56-pound weight event, and the married women’s race. Still no hurling. “The evening shadows lengthened. Six o’clock arrived, and it Was time for potheen. ‘Owin’ to the dampness of the evenin’,’ the master of ceremonies announced, a there’ll be no hurlin’/ "And there wasn’t.”