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Belfast Telegraph
2 days ago
- Sport
- Belfast Telegraph
Maeve Kyle, pioneering Olympian who inspired a generation of Irish women to follow in her footsteps
Kyle, who died this week at the age of 96, was a coach, administrator and international team manager, as well as a mentor to so many, both on and off the track. In the seven decades since the 1956 Melbourne Games, many Irish women have donned the green vest on the Olympic stage, but Kyle was the first to do so in athletics, carving a path where none had existed, leaving a trail that so many would follow. As Athletics Ireland stated in its tribute, Kyle was 'a true pioneer of Irish sport and one of our most iconic and inspirational athletes'. Born in Kilkenny in 1928, Kyle (nee Shankey) studied at Alexandra College and Trinity College in Dublin but lived most of her adult life in Co Antrim, settling in Ballymena with her husband Sean. In 1955, they founded Ballymena and Antrim Athletics Club, where she continued to coach well into her 80s. Hockey Ireland described her as a 'standout figure' who earned 46 international caps and a place on the World All-Star team in 1953 and 1959. Kyle also competed in tennis, swimming, sailing and cricket, but she was most renowned for her feats on the track. At the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and the 1960 Games in Rome, she raced in the 100m and 200m, while at Tokyo in 1964, she competed in the 400m and 800m. In 1966, Kyle won 400m bronze at the European Indoors in Dortmund. To truly appreciate her legacy, it's crucial to understand the battle she faced just to make the start line. Ireland was a very different place during her career, with Kyle telling the Irish Independent in 2013 that female athletes were viewed similar 'to how the Taliban view Muslim women'. Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid had stated that women who sought to compete in the vicinity of men were 'un-Irish and un-Catholic'. Kyle rebelled against such archaic beliefs, with long-time Irish athletics team manager Patsy McGonagle telling Donegal Live that she 'wasn't afraid of going to war: I remember her going to the door of the Bishop's Palace and tackling [McQuaid], who wouldn't let women take part in nationals'. The Irish star of the Melbourne Games was Ronnie Delany, who won 1500m gold, and he had a lifelong friendship with Kyle, writing the foreword to The Remarkable Kyles, a book about her and Sean. 'I admire Maeve greatly, because of her contribution to sport close on six decades,' Delany wrote. 'Her own achievements are well-chronicled, but what isn't known is the enormous respect people like me hold for Maeve and how we appreciate her in person to this very day. What a wonderful contribution she made to sport.' Kyle was a life vice-president of Athletics Ireland and president of the Northern Ireland Athletic Federation in an era when female sports administrators were especially rare. As former Athletics Ireland president Liam Hennessy said, she and Sean were 'so incredibly enthusiastic, so articulate and they covered every aspect of the sport'. Maeve Kyle played a pivotal role in the area during the Troubles. 'She reached out to everybody,' John Stuart, president of Ballymena and Antrim AC, said. 'There were no boundaries whatsoever. The coaches and community in Ballymena will never forget her, and they will ensure her work will be an encouragement to young people in the future.' At the 1960 Rome Olympics, Kyle shared breakfast with an 18-year-old US boxer, Cassius Clay, four years before he became Muhammad Ali. She described him as a 'lovely guy' and in the decades that followed, she developed her own iconic status in her sport, returning to the Olympics in Sydney 2000 as an Irish team coach, passing on lessons she had learned across a lifetime in sport. Maeve Kyle is predeceased by her husband Sean and is survived by her daughter Shauna.
Irish Examiner
4 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Clodagh Finn: They called Maeve Kyle a disgrace to motherhood — then she became an Irish Olympic icon
Maeve Kyle, the multi-sport athlete and three-time Olympian who died on Wednesday, often told the story of the outrage that greeted her selection to compete in the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. The sting of the condemnation in a particularly virulent letter to the editor in The Irish Times stayed with her. You can almost visualise the curled-lipped indignation of its writer as he (or perhaps she) spat these words on the page: 'A sports field is no place for a woman'. Sending a woman — and a married one at that — to represent Ireland at the Games was 'most unbecoming, unseemly and degrading of womenfolk. It must not be countenanced on any grounds.' The letter was signed Vox Populi, a sign-off that was both arrogant and cowardly; here was a person willing to represent the voice of the people yet felt the need to hide behind a pen name, although that pseudonym was in regular use at the time. It is also fair to say that the sentiment reflected a widespread belief that Maeve Kyle was indeed a 'disgrace to motherhood', as she described it later herself. Even her own parents-in-law were opposed to her jetting off to Melbourne, leaving her husband (and coach) Sean and their young daughter Shauna behind. 'They never congratulated me. They never asked me how I did and they lived next door. It was quite extraordinary,' she said in an expansive and beautiful interview with Eoin O'Callaghan published in this paper in 2016. HISTORY HUB If you are interested in this article then no doubt you will enjoy exploring the various history collections and content in our history hub. Check it out HERE and happy reading And yet, you'll find evidence of early support for burgeoning female talent in places where you might not expect to find it. Who, for instance, would have imagined that Éamon de Valera, a man not known for championing women's sports, would be one of Maeve Kyle's early admirers? After winning a race at Trinity College in Dublin in the early 1950s, she got a message to say de Valera would like to meet her. 'I was brought into the enclosure and there he was. 'A fine race you ran', he said. I was gobsmacked that he was even talking to me. And then he said, 'Unusual for women' — I always remember that Whatever the early reservations in the press and society at large, it wasn't long before Maeve Kyle's sporting prowess blasted them away. If you scroll back through the coverage of her athletics and hockey careers, the tone changes very quickly. By the early 1960s, the newspapers were already celebrating 'each illustrious chapter in her success story' with glee. Maeve Kyle at home in Galgorm, Ballymena. And what success. It is difficult to summarise the scale and sweep of her achievements. Here is a potted summary of the sporting life of Kilkenny-born Maeve Kyle who died this week at the age of 96. She was our first track Olympian, representing Ireland in the 100m and 200m sprints in Melbourne in 1956, the year Ronnie Delany won gold in the 1500m. She competed in the Rome Olympics in 1960 and, in 1964, reached the semi-finals of both the 400m and 800m in Tokyo. She went on to win bronze in the 400m at the 1966 European Indoor Championships in Dortmund, Germany. In parallel, she chalked up an incredible 58 hockey caps for Ireland, and was named in the World All Star team in 1953 and 1959. She also competed in tennis, swimming, sailing and cricket. The tributes this week acknowledge her lasting legacy as a coach too. With her husband Sean, she set up the Ballymena & Antrim Athletics Club and she was involved in a fourth Olympic Games as coach to the Irish track and field team at Sydney 2000. In a tribute, John T Glover, coach and 'athletics nut' as he calls himself, captured something of the fortitude needed to, first, compete as an athlete and, then, carve out a space for others to do so. 'Maeve was often referred to as the 'Kilkenny Kitten', a sobriquet which was only half appropriate. Maeve was no 'kitten' and there were few in the sport who did not experience the sharp tongue of Mrs Kyle. But it was through her effervescent enthusiasm, innovation and doggedness that women's athletics developed. Competitions like the Top Ten, Top Town, indoor Track and Field in gyms and sports halls and of course the Celtic International were all down to her.' Recognition Her incomparable talent and contribution were widely acknowledged in her lifetime, which is the right time for it; no point leaving the glory until after the person has left us. There were a slew of awards. The one that comes to mind is the 2012 Irish Times/Sport Ireland Lifetime Achievement award because of its many Olympic echoes. It was presented by her teammate and friend, Ronnie Delany, who paid this tribute: 'She has achieved so many firsts, not forgetting the first Irish woman to set an indoor world record. Most of all she's a dear friend, and a pleasure and privilege to know.' That was also the year boxer Katie Taylor won Olympic gold, but there was another reflection of Irish Games glory which passed under the radar at the time. On April 10, 2012, Tipperary-born Olympian fencer Dorothy 'Tommy' Dermody died. She was one of five women on the 83-member Irish team at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, and she held the distinction of being Ireland's oldest living Olympian until she died age 102. She was also Games Mistress at Alexandra College Dublin where she taught one Maeve Kyle. (On an aside, she picked up the name 'Tommy' while travelling with her father, William, on his frequent trips away as a ship's captain. He was permitted just one female passenger — his wife Julia — so, in order to come along, Dorothy cut her hair and disguised herself as a boy called 'Tommy'. The name stuck). Like her student, Dorothy Dermody was gifted in several sporting disciplines. She represented Ireland in diving, lacrosse and squash, accomplishments which Sean Kyle referenced to persuade his wife of two years to consider competing in her first Olympics. You could say that was an early case of 'If you see it, you can be it', but what emerges from reading interviews with Maeve Kyle — thankfully, there are many — is that sport was innate to her. She offered this evocative vignette to the Irish Examiner in the aforementioned interview: 'My first sports memories are playing handball in a covered alley against my two younger brothers — I used to beat them because they were slower than me. The handball gave me fantastic hand-eye coordination. "I played touch rugby with the boys. I played hockey with the boys. I swam in the river with the boys. I was convinced I was a boy, too — living in a boy's school (her father CG Shankey was headmaster at Kilkenny College) with two brothers." When, aged 13, she told her father that she'd like to compete in the school sports day, he said he had not planned to put on a girl's event, so she just ran against the boys — and won! By then, she was a student at Alexandra College in Dublin and was living with her grandparents at the Provost's House, number 1 Grafton St, in Trinity College. Her grandfather, William Edward Thrift, was provost. I hadn't known that before, nor that Maeve Kyle had briefly studied medicine at the college. She later switched to natural sciences partly because she fancied someone in the class, or so she joked at one point. In an inglorious week when the focus has been on the Molly Malone statue on Suffolk St — and her poor, groped breasts — it would be the perfect time to honour this norm-shattering trailblazer at her former alma mater a stone's throw away. The Eavan Boland Library, the first building on Trinity's campus to be named after a woman in 2024, could do with a teammate.
BBC News
21-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Cambridge researcher studies teenage diaries from Stalin-era
The diaries of teenage boys in pre-war Soviet Russia have revealed how they navigated ideology and propaganda while expressing Zadirko, a Slavonic Studies researcher at Trinity College, Cambridge, studied 25 diaries written between 1930 and of the documents had never been studied before and preserved the voices of teenage boys from a range of families and said the diaries showed how "Soviet ideology shaped people, but they weren't completely brainwashed". The project focused on male teenagers growing up in the pre-war Stalinist era. "Scholars tend to disregard most of what's in these diaries as just teenage concerns," Zadirko said. "But in 1930s Russia, writing was a key strategy for teenage boys to process their coming of age and find their place in society. "Even if their diary remained a private document, writing for these boys felt very high-stakes, even existential."Zadirko believed the diaries provided a crucial safe space for 1930s Soviet teenagers to work out how to perform their public identity, which she said gave them an advantage over many teenagers today."Working out your identity in public on social media today feels much less safe... in the private setting of a diary, the only judge is yourself." One diary was that of Ivan Khripunov, the son of a man who was labelled a kulak, a wealthy peasant who was then exiled as an enemy of the people. It was a rare example of a peasant diary written by a young person with insights into his life from 1937, at 14, until his conscription into the Red Army in writing followed Maxim Gorky's literary model and he wrote about his family surviving famine, exile, and his mother and elder sisters suffering from the public humiliation of 'dekulakisation'. "I don't think Ivan realised that he was doing something potentially dangerous," Zadirko said. "By imitating Gorky, Ivan was following established literary conventions, but in doing so, he broke the rules of a Stalinist public autobiography, by discussing taboo subjects. It was not an expression of conscious political dissent but a clash of cultural models."Zadirko added that from today's perspective, teenage boys in 1930s Russia seemed conforming but, while diarists used Soviet ideological concepts to fashion themselves, they did so in creative, unexpected ways."These boys bent and circumvented Soviet doctrine, so they retained their teenage sense of self while still trying to fit the Soviet mould," Zadirko said."We mustn't over exoticize Soviet lives. Soviet ideology shaped people, but they weren't completely brainwashed. "There weren't just true believers and dissidents. People didn't simply accept or reject propaganda, or play by its rules to survive. "The diaries show that Soviet people, including teenagers, were many things all at once, trying to assemble their identity and make sense of the world with what they were given." Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
New Straits Times
20-07-2025
- Sport
- New Straits Times
Addeen bags second straight title, Wa Sern clinches Satellite event
KUALA LUMPUR: It was a Sunday to remember for Malaysian squash as Addeen Idrakie and Low Wa Sern bagged the Victorian Open and ACE PSA WSF Satellite No. 5 titles, respectively. For 31-year-old Addeen, the win marked his second title in as many weeks after triumphing at the Morrinsville Open in New Zealand last weekend. World No. 104 Addeen proved too strong for unseeded compatriot Nathan Kueh, cruising to an 11-2, 11-4, 8-11, 11-3 victory in the final in Melbourne, Australia. "This is my best run since recovering from a shoulder injury five months ago," said Addeen. "I'm proud of winning back-to-back titles. My next event is the National Championships next month, and I'll give it my all to defend my title." Meanwhile, reigning Asian Junior Under-19 champion Wa Sern bounced back from the disappointment of missing out on his final World Junior Championships appearance by clinching the Satellite event in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia did not send a team to the championships in Cairo due to the ongoing Middle East crisis. Second seed and world No. 370 Wa Sern barely broke a sweat as he swept aside compatriot M. Nickhileswar 11-5, 11-7, 11-0 in the final at the ACE University Malaya Centre of Excellence. "Winning this tournament will help improve my world ranking," said Wa Sern. "I'm also looking forward to the National Championships in Penang next week before I head back to the United States to resume my studies at Trinity College, Connecticut."
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
Acclaimed conductor Roger Norrington dead at age 91
Roger Norrington, a conductor acclaimed for historically informed performances during more than a half-century leading orchestras in Europe and the United States, has died. He was 91. Norrington died Friday at his home, his son Tom said Saturday. Norrington lived outside Exeter, England. Norrington conducted both period-instruments and modern orchestras, asking both types to play without vibrato and usually at faster tempi than modern practice. 'He was an extraordinary dramatist. He made things happen emotionally,' Myron Lutzke, an Orchestra of St. Luke's cellist who helped persuade Norrington to become music director, said Saturday. 'He had his detractors, certainly, and some of them were some of my best friends. But for me, he got the music off the page. He made the concert experience transformative.' Born on March 16, 1934, Norrington was the son of Arthur, president of Trinity College, Oxford, and the former Edith Carver. A violinist and boy soprano in his youth, Roger attended The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Dragon School, Westminster School, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music, where he studied under conductor Adrian Boult. In 1962, Norrington founded the Schütz Choir, originally dedicated to the works of Heinrich Schütz. He became music director of Kent Opera from 1969-84, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta from 1985-89 and New York's Orchestra of St. Luke's from 1990-94. He was principal conductor of Camerata Salzburg from 1997 to 2006, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1998 to 2011 and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra from 2011-16. 'Orchestras didn't generally use vibrato until the 1930s,' Norrington told The Guardian in 2007. 'It is a fashion, like smoking, which came in at about the same time. Smoking is now going, so maybe vibrato will too. ... I have discovered, all the way from Monteverdi to Mahler, is that when music is played as it should be, the sound is wonderful, the expression is wonderful and the instruments match together.' Norrington was nominated for four Grammy Awards and won in 2001 for a recording of Nicholas Maw's Violin Concerto with Joshua Bell and the London Philharmonic. Norrington retired after conducting the Royal Northern Sinfonia in an all-Hadyn concert on Nov. 18, 2021. 'I have enjoyed every minute of over 50 years of making music with some of the most wonderful and talented musicians in the world," he said in a statement. 'The time has come to step off the podium.' His first marriage, to Susan McLean May, ended in a divorce in 1982. He married the choreographer Kay Lawrence in the mid-1980s; she died last year. Norrington was made a Knight Bachelor in 1997.
