Pat O'Callaghan
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Patrick O'Callaghan (28 January 1906 – 1 December 1991) was an Irish hammer thrower and double Olympic gold medallist. He was the first
athlete An athlete is most commonly a person who competes in one or more sports involving physical strength, speed, power, or endurance. Sometimes, the word "athlete" is used to refer specifically to sport of athletics competitors, i.e. including track ...
from
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
to win an Olympic medal under the
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rather than the
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.


Early and private life

O'Callaghan was born in the
townland A townland (; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a traditional small land division used in Ireland and in the Western Isles of Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of medieval Gaelic origin, predating the Norman invasion, and mo ...
of Knockaneroe, near Kanturk,
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, on 28 January 1906, the second of three sons born to Paddy O'Callaghan, a farmer, and Jane (née Healy). He began his education at the age of two at Derrygalun national school. O'Callaghan progressed to
secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...
in Kanturk and at the age of fifteen, he won a scholarship to the Patrician Academy in Mallow. During his year in the Patrician Academy, he cycled the round trip from Derrygalun every day and he never missed a class. O'Callaghan subsequently studied medicine at the
Royal College of Surgeons The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college (a form of corporation) established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations ...
in
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
. Following his graduation in 1926 as the youngest doctor ever produced by RCSI, he pursued postgraduate studies at
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, then joined the
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Medical Service and was stationed at RAF Halton. He returned to Ireland in 1928 and set up his own medical practice in
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,
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, where he worked until his retirement in 1984. O'Callaghan was also a renowned field sports practitioner,
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trainer and storyteller. In 1934, he married Kitty O'Reilly, a native of Clonmel, with whom he had four sons followed by a daughter. One of O'Callaghan's sons, Hugh, won twelve Irish national athletics titles (four shot put, four discus, two hammer, one javelin and one decathlon) and three Irish weightlifting titles, setting eight Irish shot put records and three Irish weightlifting records; he was also a successful weightlifting coach in the United States.


Sporting career


Early sporting life

O’Callaghan was born into a family that had a huge interest in a variety of different sports. His uncle, Tim Vaughan, was a national sprint champion and played
Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...
with
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in 1893. O’Callaghan's eldest brother, Seán, also enjoyed football as well as winning a national 440 yards hurdles title, while his other brother, Con, was also regarded as a gifted runner, jumper and thrower. O’Callaghan's early sporting passions included fishing, poaching and Gaelic football. He was regarded as an excellent midfielder on the Banteer football team, while he also lined out with the Banteer
hurling Hurling (, ') is an outdoor Team sport, team game of ancient Gaelic culture, Gaelic Irish origin, played by men and women. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goa ...
team. At university in Dublin, O’Callaghan broadened his sporting experiences by joining the local senior rugby club. This was at a time when the
Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sports, amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional Irish sports o ...
forbade players of
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from playing "foreign sports". It was also in Dublin that O’Callaghan first developed an interest in hammer throwing. In 1926, he returned to his native Duhallow where he set up a training regime in that discipline. Here he fashioned his own hammer by boring a one-inch hole through a 16 lb shot and filling it with the ball-bearing core of a bicycle pedal. He also set up a throwing circle in a nearby field where he trained. In 1927, O’Callaghan returned to Dublin where he won that year's hammer championship with a throw of . In 1928, he retained his national title with a throw of , a win that allowed him to represent Ireland at the 1928 Summer Olympics. On the same day, O’Callaghan's brother, Con, won the shot put and the decathlon and also qualified for the Olympic Games. Between winning his national title and competing in the Olympic Games O’Callaghan improved his throwing distance by recording a distance of at the
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Sports in
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.


1928 Olympic Games

In the summer of 1928, the three O’Callaghan brothers paid their own fares when travelling to the Olympic Games in Amsterdam. Pat finished in sixth place in the preliminary round and started the final with a throw of . This put him in third place behind Ossian Skiöld of
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
but ahead of Malcolm Nokes, the favourite from
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. For his second throw, O’Callaghan used the Swede's own hammer and recorded a throw of . This was more than Skiöld's throw and resulted in a first gold medal for O’Callaghan and for Ireland. The podium presentation was particularly emotional as it was the first time at an Olympic Games that the
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was raised and
Amhrán na bhFiann "" (), or in English, "The Soldier's Song", is the national anthem of Ireland. The music was composed by Peadar Kearney and Patrick Heeney, the original English lyrics written by Kearney, and the Irish-language translation, now usually the ...
was played.


Success in Ireland

After returning from the Olympic Games, O’Callaghan cemented his reputation as a great athlete with additional successes between 1929 and 1932. In the national championships of 1930 he won the hammer, shot-putt, 56 lbs without follow, 56 lbs over-the-bar, discus and high jump. In the summer of 1930, O’Callaghan took part in a two-day invitation event in
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where Oissian Skoeld was expected to gain revenge on the Irishman for the defeat in Amsterdam. On the first day of the competition, Skoeld broke his own European record with his very first throw. O’Callaghan followed immediately and overtook him with his own first throw breaking the new record. On the second day of the event both O’Callaghan and Skoeld were neck-and-neck, when the former, with his last throw, set a new European record of to win.


1932 Summer Olympics

By the time the
1932 Summer Olympics The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932, in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held du ...
came around, O’Callaghan was regularly throwing the hammer over . The Irish team were much better organised on that occasion and the whole journey to
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was funded by a church-gate collection. Shortly before departing on the boat and train journey across the Atlantic, O’Callaghan collected a fifth hammer title at the national championships. On arrival in Los Angeles, O’Callaghan's preparations of the defence of his title came unstuck. The surface of the hammer circle had always been of grass or clay and throwers wore field shoes with steel spikes set into the heel and sole for grip. In Los Angeles, however, a cinder surface was to be provided. The Olympic Committee of Ireland had failed to notify O’Callaghan of this change. Consequently, he came to the arena with three pairs of spiked shoes for a grass or clay surface and time did not permit a change of shoe. He wore his shortest spikes, but found that they caught in the hard gritty slab and impeded his crucial third turn. Despite being severely impeded, he managed to qualify for the final stage of the competition with his second throw of . While the final of the 400m hurdles was delayed, O’Callaghan hunted down a hacksaw and a file in the groundskeeper's shack and cut off the spikes. O’Callaghan's second throw reached a distance of , a score that allowed him to retain his Olympic title. It was Ireland's second gold medal of the day as Bob Tisdall had earlier won a gold medal in the 400m hurdles.


Retirement

O’Callaghan did not take part in the national athletic championships in Ireland in 1933. However, he still worked hard at training and experimented with a fourth turn to set a new European record at . By this stage, O’Callaghan was rated as the top thrower in the world by the leading international sports journalists. In the early 1930s, a controversy erupted between the British AAA and the National Athletic and Cycling Association of Ireland (NACAI). The British AAA claimed jurisdiction in
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
while the NACAI claimed jurisdiction over the entire island of
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
regardless of political division. The controversy came to a head in the lead-up to the
1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad () and officially branded as Berlin 1936, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, then capital of Nazi Germany. Berlin won the bid to ...
when the
IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations and formerly abbreviated as the IAAF, is the international sports governing body, governing body for the sport ...
finally disqualified the NACAI. O'Callaghan won the British
AAA Championships The AAA Championships was an annual track and field competition organised by the Amateur Athletic Association of England. It was the foremost domestic athletics event in the United Kingdom during its lifetime, despite the existence of the offi ...
title in the hammer throw event at the British 1934 AAA Championships. O’Callaghan remained loyal to the NACAI, a decision which effectively brought an end to his international athletic career. No Irish team travelled to the 1936 Olympic Games; however, O’Callaghan travelled to
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as a private spectator. After Berlin, O’Callaghan's international career was over. He declined to join the new Irish Amateur Athletics Union (IAAU) or subsequent IOC-recognised Amateur Athletics Union of Eire (AAUE) and continued to compete under NACAI rules. At
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in 1937 he threw – nearly two metres ahead of the world record of set by his old friend Paddy 'Chicken' Ryan in 1913. This record, however, was not ratified by the AAUE or the IAAF. In retirement, O’Callaghan remained interested in athletics. He travelled to every Olympic Games up until 1988 and enjoyed fishing and shooting pheasants in Clonmel. He died on 1 December 1991.


Legacy

O'Callaghan was the flag bearer for Ireland at the 1932 Olympics. In 1960, he became the first person to receive the Texaco Hall of Fame Award. He was made a Freeman of Clonmel in 1984 and was honorary president of Commercials GAA. In 1988 he was awarded the inaugural Distinguished Graduate Award by the RCSI Association of Medical and Dental Graduates. The Dr Pat O'Callaghan Sports Complex at Cashel Rd, Clonmel, which is the home of Clonmel Town Football Club, is named after him. In January 2007, a statue to him was raised in Banteer, County Cork.


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ocallaghan, Pat 1906 births 1991 deaths Irish general practitioners Irish male hammer throwers Royal Air Force Medical Service officers Olympic athletes for Ireland Olympic gold medalists for Ireland Athletes (track and field) at the 1928 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1932 Summer Olympics Athletes from County Cork Alumni of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Alumni of University College Cork People from Kanturk Male weight throwers Irish military doctors Medalists at the 1932 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1928 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists in athletics (track and field) 20th-century Irish medical doctors People from Banteer Medical doctors from County Cork Irish Free State sportsmen