Clodagh Finn: They called Maeve Kyle a disgrace to motherhood — then she became an Irish Olympic icon

Maeve Kyle broke rules, records, and expectations — blazing a trail from Kilkenny to Tokyo across five decades of Irish sport

Maeve Kyle was Ireland’s first female track and field Olympian. Picture: Getty Images

Sat, 26 Jul, 2025 - 01:00

Clodagh Finn

Clodagh Finn is a journalist, writer and collector of stories. Her recent book, The Irish in the Resistance, co-authored with John Morgan, shines a light on the forgotten contributions of the Irish who resisted Hitler during WW2.

Maeve Kyle, the multi-sport athlete and three-time Olympian who died on Wednesday, often told the story of the outrage that greeted her selection to compete in the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.

The sting of the condemnation in a particularly virulent letter to the editor in The Irish Times stayed with her. You can almost visualise the curled-lipped indignation of its writer as he (or perhaps she) spat these words on the page: “A sports field is no place for a woman”. Sending a woman — and a married one at that — to represent Ireland at the Games was “most unbecoming, unseemly and degrading of womenfolk. It must not be countenanced on any grounds.”