Writer, athlete, and first champion of the modern Olympics
James Brendan Connolly became the first gold medalist of the modern Olympics when winning the hop, skip and jump competition at the Athens Games of 1896, August 8th) can be complete without the remarkable story of James Brendan Connolly , a Boston-born son of the Aran Islands.
As a US envoy to Ireland in 1921, he saved Brennan’s father – a prominent republican – from the Black and Tans. The Brennans later moved to New York, when Maeve’s literary career flourished. After a short education there, Connolly joined the US Army Corps of Engineers. Then an urge for self-improvement gradually propelled him toAlas for scholarship, he was also by then a talented sportsman. And his belated elevation to the famous Boston university coincided with the even more belated revival of the Olympics.
“For the remainder of that winter my mind was on the Games and a voyage to Athens. Violet-wreathed Athens! Marbled Athens! The Athens of Homer, the wanderer, the adventurer, the sailorman who had been three times shipwrecked. Homer’s Odyssey – Chapman’s translation – was high on my list of favourite books.”
But in 1921, he persuaded an Irish Relief Committee to send him to Ireland as its representative and spent time touring the troubled country.
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