Sir, - As a young teenager at boarding school, I had the privilege of listening to a live, early-morning radio broadcast of Ronnie Delany’s magnificent run to victory in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.
I never met the great man, but I did get a treasured congratulatory tap on the shoulder from him in College Green when I completed my first Dublin Marathon there in 1983. I still have the blessed singlet.
May this legendary athlete rest in peace. I hope Dublin City Council will move quickly to commission a suitable monument to commemorate this great Irishman. – Yours, etc,
VAL O’DONNELL,
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Glasnevin,
Dublin 9.
Sir, - Irish iconography has always been powerful. In the 1980s when we left too many lights on my father would arrive home saying: “Who do you think I am, Tony O’Reilly?”
At hurling or football matches in Cork a loose pass into open space would elicit the complaint: “Who do you think I am, Ronnie Delany?” - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DEASY,
Bandon,
Co Cork.
[ Ronnie Delany, Ireland’s Olympic gold medal-winning athlete, has died aged 91Opens in new window ]
