He played Gaelic football, hurling, and rugby for his native Kanturk, played rugby with Clontarf in Dublin, and competed with the Civil Service, Dublin University, Clonliffe Harriers, and Donore Harriers athletic clubs, affiliated to the AAU at the time of Ireland’s athletics dispute, and competed in the shot putt at the 1948 Olympics. He won a total of thirty Irish titles the last in 1956, as weight thrower, sprinter and long jumper. In 1941 won national junior titles in five different disciplines: the shot put, javelin, discus, high jump, and broad jump. He was twice shot-put champion at the London Amateur Athletics Association championship in 1947 and 1948. His 1953 putt of 15.14m stood as an Irish record for ten years.
Journalism
In 1946 he resigned from his post in the civil service after being refused leave to represent Ireland in the European Championships in Oslo and turned to journalism shortly afterwards. He began his career as a journalist with the Irish Independent and subsequently became sports editor of the Irish Press in 1964. He also worked for a number of now-defunct British Sunday papers, including the Sunday Graphic, Empire News, Reynolds’ News, and Sunday Dispatch. In the early 1970s he moved to the Sunday Mirror as Irish sports editor, while remaining based in Dublin, and wrote a regular column for the Cork Evening Echo.
Books
He was acknowledged as Ireland's foremost authority on the Olympics and published over thirty books on a wide variety of sports, including Gaelic games, rugby, soccer and golf. Books on the Olympic games included The friendly Olympics, written about the 1932 games; and Ireland and the Olympic games. He also wrote four books of sporting reminiscences: A little wine and a few friends, The days of the little green apples, Good days and good friends, and Happy hours (1994.
Award schemes
He was involved in the establishment and development of many Irish sports awards, including the All-Stars and the GAA Player of the Month scheme. His roles included chair of the Association of Sports Journalists of Ireland, and being prominent in the International SportsPress Association, and the International Association of Olympic Historians as well as being a former chairman of the Rugby Writers of Ireland.
Marriage and death
He married Phyllis Ludgate from Dublin in 1947, a relation of the Irish champion weight thrower Tom Ludgate; they had three children. He died after a short illness in the Mater Hospital on October 14, 2000, and was cremated after a funeral service in St Mary's Church of Ireland, Howth.
