Gold, Silver and Green: The Irish Olympic Journey, 1896-1924 by Kevin McCarthy and published by Cork University Press has won the best book on the Olympic Movement and Olympic history for 2010. The award was made by the International Society of Olympic Historians.
The book focuses on the Irish and Irish diasporal involvement in the Olympic Games. It discusses in detail the sporting involvement but, even more so, the political and national battles which accompanied the Irish Olympic journey prior to independence. It challenges our traditional perceptions of sporting nationalism and places the Irish story in a quite unique international context, showing how decisions made in London, Lausanne and New York had a profound impact on the Irish sporting, and national, destiny.
‘This is a remarkable book . . it engrosses the reader. -’ Bill Mallon, Journal of Olympic History
‘The research that underpins this work is impressive in its use of a wide range of source material much of it being used in a work of Irish history for the first time.’- International Journal of the History of Sport
ISBN 978-185918-458-5, €39, £35, Hbk, 234 x 156mm, 2010, 428pp
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