Jim Beckett

Jim Beckett was a versatile athlete who excelled in a variety of different sports. Before graduating with a degree in medicine from Trinity College Dublin, Beckett played 8 seasons of club rugby for Old Wesley and also made a trio of appearances for Leinster at inter-provincial level. Towards the end of his time at Trinity he found some success as a boxer and was twice heavyweight champion of Dublin University.

However it was in the swimming pool where he found his greatest sporting successes, both as a swimmer and water polo player. As a swimmer he won all the then available Irish titles during his career and was six times 100 yards freestyle champion between 1902 and 1919. He held the Irish record for 100 yards for 27 years until it was finally beaten in 1936. His only Olympic appearance came in his 40th year when he captained the Irish water polo team on their Olympic debut. This was the culmination of a career which saw him represent Ireland at the sport 25 times between 1902 and 1925.

Beckett qualified as a doctor in 1912 and, after serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps in World War I, worked as an anaesthetist at the Adelaide Hospital in Dublin for a quarter of a century. His nephew, Samuel Beckett, is feted as one of the giants of 20th century European literature and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.