Christy Walsh was one of the starting five for Ireland in their opening basketball game against Mexico at the 1948 London Olympic Games - the first Irish basketball team to compete at the Olympics. Ireland arrived at the Harringay Arena twenty minutes late after a bus got lost en route and had no warm-up before the opening whistle, and were beaten 71-9. The team, drawn almost entirely from the Irish Army's Western Command in Athlone and including the sole civilian Harry Boland, finished 23rd and last of 23 competing nations.
Basketball
