Arts

About Arts

Between 1912 and 1948, the Olympics awarded medals not just for athletic achievement but for the arts, across five categories, architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture, for works inspired by sport, a competition Pierre de Coubertin called the "Pentathlon of the Muses." Ireland's very first Olympic medals came in this category: at Paris 1924, the country's debut Games as an independent nation, Jack B. Yeats won silver in painting for "The Liffey Swim," depicting the annual Dublin river race, and Oliver St John Gogarty won bronze in literature for his poem "Ode to the Tailteann Games," making 1924 Ireland's most successful Olympics in the arts. Letitia Hamilton added a further bronze in painting at London 1948, the final Games at which art competitions were held, while other notable Irish entrants over the years included Seán Keating, Oliver Sheppard, Mainie Jellett and John Lavery. The competitions were discontinued after 1948 amid concerns that professional artists conflicted with the Olympic ideal of amateurism, and have been replaced since 1952 by non-competitive cultural festivals staged alongside each Games.