Last year Tony Foley gave extensive coverage of An Tóstal 1955, the first international tournament ever held in Cork, in a series of posts (parts I, II, III, IV, V and VI), based on reports in the Evening Echo and the Examiner.
It’s hard to add much to that, but here’s a photo of the participants, from CHESS (Sutton Coldfield). Of the Irish participants, Noel Mulcahy was Irish champion in 1953, Dónal O’Sullivan in 1948, 1956, and 1957, and John Reid in 1961 and 1962 (joint). J.J. Walsh’s chess column in the Irish Times was just starting.
The tournament winner, Albéric O’Kelly de Galway from Brussels, 1911-1980, was one of the initial set of IMs in 1950 and became a GM in 1956, and he won the 3rd World Correspondence Chess Championship (1959-1962). T. D. (Theo) van Scheltinga from Amsterdam, 1914-1994, was also one of the initial batch of IMs in 1950, and had been Euwe’s second during the 1948 world championship match-tournament. B. H. Wood, 1909-1989, was best known as the founder of CHESS magazine, editing it from 1936 to 1988. Ossip Bernstein was born in the Russian Empire in 1882, competed in several major international tournaments before the First World War, including St. Petersburg 1914, disappearing completely from the scene between the wars, before returning at Groningen 1946. He was on the initial list of GMs in 1950.
At a time when titles were much rarer than they are now, An Tóstal 1955 had an impressive lineup!
A final question some of you may have is what “An Tóstal” translates as. The answer is … nothing, apparently nothing at all.