Sir, - I note that the eye-catching publicity for the Collins Barracks Museum is headlined "Irishman Wins Wimbledon". The smaller print indicates that the winner did not win at tennis but in some obscure shooting event in the last century. Clearly, people at the museum consider it to be beyond the bounds of possibility that an Irishman had actually won the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in the last century. In fact, Irishmen won the Wimbledon singles titles in 1890 (Willoughby Hamilton from Kildare); 1893 and 1894 (Joshua Pim from Wicklow); and 1896 (Harold Mahony from Kerry).
The year 1890 was especially notable for Irish tennis, with Lena Rice from Tipperary winning the women's singles title, and Joshua Pim and the Dubliner Frank Stoker picking up the men's doubles title to add to Hamilton's men's singles success. Further to these Wimbledon victories, Ireland beat England in the very first tennis international in 1892 and, to cap a marvellous decade, John Pius Boland from Dublin won two Olympic gold medals (Ireland's first in any event) in the men's singles and doubles championships of 1896.
In these days of awareness of the diaspora, Ireland could perhaps even lay claim to the very first Wimbledon men's singles winner in 1877, the English-born Spencer Gore, scion of the Gores of Mayo.
The museum suggests we "Take a Fresh Look at History". May I suggest that its publicity department does the same? - Yours, etc.,
Letterkenny, Co Donegal.
