Bill Jackson was the best-known athlete on the Irish basketball panel at the 1948 London Olympic Games, bringing to the first Irish basketball team to compete at the Olympics an outstanding record as a dual All-Ireland senior football champion who had won successive Roscommon All-Ireland titles in 1943 and 1944. A sergeant in the Irish Army's Western Command at Custume Barracks, Athlone, he was one of the starting five for Ireland's opening game against Mexico - having been kept from joining the main party until the day of departure as he was representing the Western Command in the Army shooting championships. Both of his teammates, the Sheriff brothers, were married to his sisters. Ireland finished 23rd and last of 23 nations.
Basketball
