{"id":348667,"date":"2026-03-16T07:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T07:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/348667\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T07:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T07:21:07","slug":"irelands-olympic-hero-remembered-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/348667\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s Olympic hero remembered \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, &#8211; The unforgettable words of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/bbc\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/bbc\/\">BBC<\/a> radio commentator \u201cDelany from Eire has taken the lead\u201d lit up an otherwise dark 1950s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/\">Ireland<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ronnie Delany\u2019s Olympic gold medal success became the talk of the country and his name became a byword for success even beyond athletics, and a great Dublin put-down of the time was \u201cWho do you think you are, Ronnie Delany?\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Before he took up his scholarship in the Villanova University in Philadelphia, he spent some happy times as an Army cadet in the Curragh before departing to greener athletic pastures in the US. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">However, he didn\u2019t forget his first alma mater and, in retirement, he returned to the Curragh and presented the Cadet School with the Tricolour he had wrapped around himself shortly after crossing the finishing line and uttering a prayer on his knees. What an iconic image that became. May he rest in peace. &#8211; Yours, etc,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Comdt FRANK RUSSELL, <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">(Retired),<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Blanchardstown,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Dublin 15. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, &#8211; Meeting Ronnie Delany with a mutual friend in Cushendall Golf Club in Ballymena some years ago, I told him the story of changing the name of our very mobile cat in Kilrush from Tibbelly Tobbelly to Ronnie Demanx in 1956. &#8211; Yours, etc,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">PADDY BYRNE,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Belfast. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/athletics\/2026\/03\/14\/how-ronnie-delanys-date-with-olympic-destiny-inspired-a-generation-of-irish-athletes\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How Ronnie Delany\u2019s date with Olympic destiny inspired a generation of Irish athletesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, &#8211; The unforgettable words of the BBC radio commentator \u201cDelany from Eire has taken the lead\u201d lit&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1578,61,60,43,156241],"class_list":["post-348667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-bbc","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-ronnie-delany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}