Dorothy ‘Tommy’ Dermody, the only female athlete on the 89-strong Irish team at the 1948 Olympic Games, was an extraordinary sporting pioneer. Born in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary in 1909 (her family later moved to Kilmacanogue, in Wicklow) she often accompanied her father, a ships’ captain, on his travels. As he was only allowed one female companion (his wife), her hair was cut, she dressed like a boy and was called ‘Tommy’, a sobriquet she embraced for the rest of her eventful life. She trained in physical education at Ling College in Dublin and was ‘Games Mistress’ at Alexandra College Dublin between 1943-1958, where her students included future Olympian Maeve Kyle. Dermody represented Ireland in four different sports – squash, lacrosse, diving and fencing – and when she was entered in the 1948 Olympics in London it was initially in diving but she asked to switch sports and competed in fencing (individual foil) and did not progress past her initial group. She was a vocal advocate for getting children active and confident in water, once leading a campaign to have a playground installed in every school in Ireland. She famously taught swimming ‘on the radio’ via a popular Radio Eireann children’s programme. The groundbreaking fencer was almost 103 when she died in 2012, just a month after her family accepted the Olympic Medal of Honour, on her behalf, at a special event to honour the 1948 team in Farmleigh.
