Mike Cronin and Roisín Higgins have written a book based on the Irish Sporting Heritage Project. Places we Play: Ireland’s Sporting Heritage has just been published by Collins Press.

Ballymoney Museum has a  road racing display. It holds  leathers, helmets, and memorabilia from the Dunlop brothers and other successful local riders on permanent display along side an interpretative exhibition, with film, on the history of road racing in Ireland (north & south). It’s on display 12 months a year. You can take a virtual tour at the link above.

Dublin City Library has launched its Sporting Archive. It is well worth considering donating club histories and information to this location where they will be safeguarded for future generations and where they can be made available to the general public.

GAA Oral History Project is based in Boston College-Ireland and has been commissioned by the GAA as part of its 125th Anniversary celebrations. The project aims to record the fullest possible picture of what the GAA has meant to the Irish people, in their own words. It is recording face-to-face interviews with thousands of people in Ireland and internationally, including GAA members and supporters and anyone who has ever had any contact or involvement with the GAA

The Irish Real Tennis Association exists to promote the sport of Real Tennis in Ireland. Its main focus is the restoration of the Dublin court. This court was built in 1885 by Sir Edward Guinness, and hosted the 1890 world championship. It was played on until 1939, when it was bequeathed to the Irish State, to be used as a real tennis court.

Mick the Miller Statue
Mick the Miller was the first star of greyhound racing. Born in Killeigh, Co Offaly in 1926, he remains the only greyhound to have won the English Derby, the Cesarewitch and the St Leger. A statue has been erected to him in his home town.

Played in Britain publish books on Britain’s sporting heritage. If you like an old scoreboard, or a mildewed pavilion; if you would like to know where to find the world’s oldest bowling green, or the best Art Deco grandstand in London; if you’re fed up with homogenised, commercialised sport, and long to dive into a Victorian swimming pool with gorgeous ceramic tiling; if you think potting balls all afternoon in a dimly-lit billiard hall is definitely not time mis-spent; if you have ever wondered why tennis and suburbia go together so well, then Played in Britain is for you.

Waterford County Museum has an extensive range of images and written material relating to sport in the county. A considerable amount of this material has been made available online.

This one day event will discuss these issues, and much more. The idea is to bring together scholars who are working in this area, who will provide and national and international perspective on the sporting heritage experience, with individuals and organisations in the cultural and sporting arena who are charged with caring for aspects of the nation’s past or else ensuring the sporting present and future.

The event is part of a wider project undertaken by Boston College, which is funded by the Department of Art, Sport and Tourism.

09.30-10.45: Case Studies 1
Professor Mike Cronin (Boston College): Sporting Heritage – The British Experience
Professor Douglas Booth (University of Otago, New Zealand): Bondi Beach as heritage place

10.45 – 11.15: Coffee

11.15 – 12.40: Roundtable 1: Sporting Heritage from the cultural view
Kevin Baird (Irish Heritage Trust)
Dr John McCullen (Superintendent, Phoenix Park)
Michael O’Doherty (Heritage Office, Football Association of Ireland)

12.40 – 1.45: Lunch

1.45 – 3.00 : Case Studies 2
Dr Roisin Higgins (Boston College): The Irish Sporting Heritage Project
Professor John Bale (Keele University, UK): Sporting Spaces and Love of Place

3.00 – 3.30: Coffee

3.30 – 5.00: Roundtable 2: Sporting heritage from the Associational view
Mark Dorman (Director, GAA Museum Croke Park)
Orla Strumble (Irish Greyhound Board)
Sarah O’Connor (Federation of Irish Sports)

The event will take place on 13th January 2010 at Boston College, 42 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin. If you need any assistance in locating us, please call the office on 01-6147450 or else email bcirl@bc.edu

Review of Places We Play: Ireland’s Sporting Heritage (Irish Times, 26 October 2011)

Review of Places We Play: Ireland’s Sporting Heritage (Sunday Independent,  16 October 2011)

Sports News Ireland:
http://www.sportsnewsireland.com/2010/10/26/the-irish-sporting-heritage-project/

RTE Radio One:
Sport At Seven Extra with Damien O’Meara, Thursday 1st July 2010

BBC Northern Ireland Online:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8376016.stm

Irish Times:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0814/1224252551322.html

Heritage Outlook: the magazine of the Heritage Council, pp 62-3
http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/publications/outlook_newsletter/

Heritage Week 2009:
http://www.heritageweek.ie/en/about_us_case_studies.aspx?article=8814b82b-0d15-49b0-9c15-3c67c65c56c1

‘Reading Ireland’s Sporting Landscape’.
Sixth Annual Conference of Sports History Ireland, 25 September 2010, Mater Dei Institute of Education, Dublin.

‘Where Dubliners have played: the city’s built sporting heritage’, Sport and the City Seminar, Dublin City Library, 11 September 2010.
This day of talks is now available to read or listen to.

‘Carlow’s Sporting Heritage’ Carlow Rugby Club, Oak Park, Carlow, 8pm, Wednesday 24 March 2010
Hosted by Carlow Historical and Archaelogical Society

‘Kerry’s Sporting Heritage’, Kerry County Library, 6.30pm, Thursday 4 March 2010.

‘Wicklow’s Sporting Heritage’, Parnell Summer School, Avondale, Co Wicklow, August 2009.

‘Ireland’s Sporting Heritage’, Galway Conference of Irish Studies, June 2009.