106-year-old hockey veteran relishing Olympic challenge

Winning her first international cap 80 years ago in Philadelphia, Dorothea Findlater described the occasion as “just hockey”.

Ireland’s oldest living international, her reflections on the occasion are low-key, as if there was little difference in playing on the fields around Robertstown in her youth than playing an international tournament featuring several teams from around the globe.

“We always found ways to play wherever we could,” she says of her upbringing. The trip to the US on the week-long slow boat across of the Atlantic was an extension of that spirit. “I had done nothing like that before,” Dorothea recalls. “Whenever there was some kind of trip, I always tried to get involved. I loved to travel and to try and see the world especially so this was a great opportunity.”

Now 106, her sporting days have only just concluded. On her 100th birthday, she said her love of sport was a central part in keeping her in such good health for so long. Indeed, her time on Carrickmines golf club’s putting greens only ended in the past year.

“I said I would stop when I couldn’t stand up any more; they said ‘don’t worry about that, we will hold you up!’ she said of her decision a year ago to end her time on the putting greens.

Primary love

Hockey was the primary love, a passion she got from her mother and aunts and passed on through the generations – all the way to me, her grandson, as I make my career following the sport around the world.

Indeed, from her earliest days, this mixture of sport and adventure would be a central gene in her family’s make-up.

Her father, Captain Harry de Courcy Wheeler won the high stone wall championship at the Dublin Horse Show in 1904. He would later be among those accepting the surrender from Patrick Pearse during the 1916 rising.

Her mother Selina earned six hockey caps while her two aunts – Elise and Anita - earned seven each. Her uncle, Jack Knox, played in the first rugby match between Ireland and the All-Blacks in 1906 at Lansdowne Road – “a very clean match – no sparring and fisticuffs nor dirty work”.

The family home in Robertstown in the Bog of Allen doubled as a sprawling playground for Dorothea and her siblings.

“There were six of us [Children] so we didn’t really need anyone else,” she recalls. “There was always someone to play with, to swim in the canal or ride a horse or play tennis or hockey.”

The grounds also hosted Kilmeague Hockey Club where her mother and aunts regularly co-opted her and her younger sisters to play in their league team when barely 12 years old, playing regular games with “Mrs de Courcy Wheeler’s XI”.

As a right inner, she helped Kilmeague win the Portarlington Trophy and two West Cups while she received a call-up to the midlands representative team.

She had her first international formal trial of sorts in February 1928 for The Rest against Leinster in Milltown in a trial game with the Sports Mail newspaper saying her "first game in first class hockey, gave a wonderful exhibition. Her passing of the ball on every occasion was accurate and well-timed."

Having captained Kilmeague’s run to another West Cup final when still in her teens, she switched to Trinity. It drew the attention of Leinster’s selectors, playing Ulster twice, terrorising the seasoned international Miss Chambers.

In a portrait of "Prominent lady hockey players", again in the Sports Mail, she "ranked favourably with anything in the country".

In her final year of college, the hockey connection was compounded when she became engaged to George Dermot Findlater in November 1931, a fine hockey goalkeeper who would later become a president of the Leinster Hockey Union. The international call-up was belated, coming in 1936. She simply states that “selections were based on performances during the year”.

While her assessment was under-stated, the tournament she was called up for was seen as a pivotal for the women’s game on an international level. By this time, hockey was a male Olympic sport but would not gain that status for women until 1980 while female World Cups did not begin until 1974.

The first conference tournaments took place in Geneva and Denmark with the “object of spreading field hockey and, through the game, offering opportunities for women of many nations to meet and become friends.

“[We hope to] progress even father (sic) towards its objects of raising the standard of hockey and increasing goodwill and understanding.”

Under the patronage of Eleanor Roosevelt, the third edition held at Philadelphia Cricket Club was to feature Ireland along with the USA, England, Wales, Scotland, Australia along with an “all-South Africa and Rhodesia” team and an “Ecetera” team featuring some of the other best players from around the world.

Dorothea was one of five uncapped players on the tour. Getting to the states was the first challenge, taking a week-long ferry across the Atlantic.

“It was great fun. England and Scotland had a team at the same time who were all on the same boat with us. Each night, each team would have to put on a performance – some sort of play or a dance – to entertain the other teams. Each night, there would be a dinner.

“One time, we were sitting down for dinner and I happened to be sitting beside the captain. The boat tipped high on one side and red wine poured down the table and onto the captain’s nice white shirt. He was not amused and he said whoever was steering the ship would be in an awful row!”

As for the matches itself, her memories are less vivid, saying it was “just hockey”.

“I don’t remember a huge amount about the games. Everyone we played were good” before joking “I think we lost everything”.

It is not strictly true – they did get a 10-1 pasting from England and pushed Australia close in 5-4 defeat. They would go on to record a 4-2 win over Wales and a 3-3 draw with Scotland.

Irish perspective

The only match that was officially capped, from an Irish perspective, was against the hosting USA side, a 4-1 defeat. The English side won all six games to claim the laurels.

After 11 days of the international tournament, the 13-player Irish squad embarked on an east coast tour for the next fortnight, taking in games in Worcester, Massachussets, New York, Rhode Island and Boston.

It remains an important Irish appearance on the world hockey stage though she is looking forward to witnessing an even bigger occasion later this year.

She was recently honoured at a celebration night in Trinity where all of the college’s former internationals were welcomed back. The event which included a question and answer session with Ireland’s most capped player Ronan Gormley and South African double Olympian Craig Fulton the guests of honour.

It was difficult to know who was more intrigued to hear the stories when the Rio-bound duo met my grandmother but, after all these years, she is thrilled to see Ireland finally make it to the elite level.

“I still enjoy getting out to games. I would know Mitch Darling’s family and I met a few of the players and the coach. I do keep up with the Irish men’s international team and am looking forward to seeing them at the Olympics.”

She does add, though, that the current game is a far cry from her four-week sojourn to the US.

“The game has become more aggressive. It was a more friendly game back in my time. No one would hack your legs or anything like that for fear of being sent off. It was a game for ladies. You wouldn’t have attempted to do anything like that!

“It has all became much faster and more skilful, the speed and the tackling. We just used to trot in our days.”

Stephen Findlater is a journalist and grandson of Dorothea Findlater