London 1948

About

London 1948 was the first post-war Games and Ireland's first Olympics since 1932, staged on a shoestring budget that earned it the nickname the Austerity Games, with athletes housed in RAF barracks and school dormitories and Germany and Japan excluded from the competition.

For Ireland, the return after a sixteen-year absence felt significant: 79 competitors marched behind the tricolour at Wembley Stadium, though a dispute between rival athletics governing bodies meant many Irish athletes were barred from competing in track and field.

Dorothy Dermody was the only woman on the travelling team, competing in fencing. It was another woman - Letitia Hamilton - that was Ireland's sole medalist, a bronze medal in the arts painting competition - the last time the arts programme, in which painters, sculptors, architects, composers and writers competed for medals inspired by sport, appeared on the Olympic schedule.

The boxing squad came closest to a sporting medal: Mick McKeon won three bouts to reach the middleweight semi-final before injury forced him to withdraw from the bronze medal bout. John Joe Barry reached the 1500m semi-final in athletics. Ireland also made its only Olympic basketball appearance to date. Paddy Carroll carried the Irish flag at the Opening Ceremony.