Martin Egan

Martin Egan won over 30 national individual titles yet, surprisingly, he never represented Ireland at an international meeting. Furthermore, he was one of the best Irish runners never to compete at the Olympic Games. Chosen to represent Ireland (later the Republic of Ireland) in the 5,000 metres at the 1948 London Olympics, Egan never got his chance to appear on the sport’s biggest stage. Being a member of the National Athletic and Cyclists’ Association of Ireland (NACAI), who were suspended by the IAAAF in 1937 because they refused to confine their activities to the then Irish Free State, their members were not allowed to compete at the Olympics.

Egan won his first senior Irish National title as a 19-year-old member of the Feakle Athletics Club (Co. Clare) that won the Irish inter-club cross country title in 1940. He was in the winning team again in 1942 and 1943, when he also won the individual titles. After moving to Tipperary in 1946, Egan joined the Coolquill Kickhams Athletic Club and that year won seven Irish titles including the four miles, when he broke the 59-year-old record of Tommy Conneff.

Egan went on to win 30 individual Irish National track titles between 1942-51 at distances between two and ten miles. His older brothers Michael “Mikey” and John “Jack” were also Irish athletics champions, and in 1945 the siblings held eight Irish titles between them. Remarkably, Jack was the only one of the three to run for Ireland at international level.