Northern Ireland

Tailteann Games Deputation for Belfast – On This Day in 1924

Attempts to drum up interest in ‘Ireland’s answer to the Olympics’

Newspaper clippings about the Tailteann Games, described as the Irish Olympics,
The Tailteann Games, described as the Irish Olympics, were held in 1924
By Cormac Moore
April 18 1924

With a view to interesting northern sportsmen in the Tailteann Festival, an influential delegation will travel from Dublin to Belfast on Tuesday next.

The Executive of the Tailteann Games are anxious to welcome all North of Ireland sportsmen and sports lovers to the opening ceremonies of the games, which will be held in Dublin next August. Sport is the one platform on which all Irishmen unite, and the monster meeting arranged for the Munster Minor Hall, Belfast, at 7.30pm on Wednesday next, promises to cement the friendship between sportsmen all over Ireland.

Strong teams in all branches of amateur sport are travelling to the games from America, England, Scotland, and Wales.

International steamship and tourist companies have taken a direct interest in the games. Bookings from America run to 30,000 already; special steamers will run from different countries, and cheap excursion rates will be available on all railway lines. Particular attention is being paid to secure reasonable charges at hotels and restaurants, and a Central Bureau of information is being established.

To entice as many people to attend and participate, Tailteann Games organisers spent the months leading up the opening ceremony promoting the games, at home and to the wider Irish diaspora around the world.
Free State Customs Official Assaulted

At Derry Petty Sessions yesterday, John Glackin, a Free State customs official at the frontier post at Carrigans, Co Donegal, prosecuted a motor driver named Bernard Lynch, Abbey Street, Derry, for assault in the city last Saturday.

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Mr John Lacy, for the complainant, said some time ago the defendant had been guilty of breach of the customs regulations at the Carrigans post. Last Saturday the defendant, on seeing the complainant in Rossville Street, Derry, walked up behind him and struck him a brutal and cowardly blow.

The complainant, in his evidence, said on the occasion he was going to engage a motor car to convey him back to his post when Lynch met him and asked him why he had stopped him at the border on a recent occasion. The complainant paid no attention to the defendant, who thereupon struck him a blow on the temple, knocking him down.

A case showing that customs officials were not only subject to violent attacks at their posts occasionally, but also on the streets if they stumbled upon those they had prosecuted previously.