Maeve Kyle (nee Shankey), who turned 95 last October, was born in Kilkenny and, like her former PE teacher in Alexandra College (Dorothy Dermody), also made Irish Olympic history. She was the only woman on an 18-strong Irish team in Melbourne 1956 and the first to represent Ireland in Olympic track and field in Melbourne when, as a young mother, she faced considerable public disproval from the Catholic commentators of the time. Kyle competed in the 100/200m (the longest Olympic distances for women until 1960) in 1956 and 1960 (Rome) and, in her third Olympics in Tokyo (1964), reached semi-finals of the 400m and 800m. She also won 58 Irish caps in hockey (including a Triple Crown in Wembley in 1950) and, when Dutch sprint superstar Fanny Blankers-Koen ran in Lansdowne Road two weeks after her four Olympic golds in 1948, Kyle and her hockey colleague Joan O’Reilly provided the opposition. At 42 Kyle qualified for the 400m final of the 1970 Commonwealth Games and went on to set many age-group world records in Masters sprints and long jump. But her seminal role in Irish athletics is also marked by founding Ballymena AC with her late husband Sean in 1955, and being a revered and passionate coach well into her ‘80s.
