Denis Lambert Sugrue was the cox of the UCD Boat Club eight that formed the core of the composite Irish crew at the 1948 London Olympic Games - the only Irish team at those Games to be officially designated 'Ireland' in the programme. A member of UCDBC, he had coxed the UCD crew to the inter-varsity Wylie Cup and Senior VIII title in both 1947 and 1948. He adopted the double-barrel form of his name for the Henley appearance in 1947, before abandoning it on return to everyday life. The composite crew was beaten by Canada and Portugal in the opening heat and by Norway in the repechage.
Denis Sugrue attended Blackrock College in Dublin and then was a Kitchener scholar at University College in Dublin, matriculating there in 1945. After his Olympic experience he resumed his medical training and served as a registrar in otolaryngology at Royal Free Hospital in London from 1953-54, then was a senior registrar in the Plastic and Jaw Unit at Basingstone, England in 1954-57. He served as a consultant to The Children's Hospital in Dublin from 1957-67. Dr. Sugrue then returned to training in a different specialty, serving as registrar in venereology at St. Thomas Hospital in London from 1969-70, followed by senior registrarship in the same field at Wessex Regional Hospital in Southampton from 1970-72. He then became consultant at Northern & Mid-Staffordshire beginning in1972, specializing in sexually transmitted diseases, and he began as a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Birmingham in 1982. He was the author of the book Sexual Infections, which came out in 1985, and was a member of the Medical Society for the Study of Venereal Disease.
Rowing
