Who (and what and when): a partial solution

On the puzzle of Oliver Dunne’s picure, my guesses weren’t too bad but still fell short. Looking at the formal attire, it’s clear this is no recent event, or an event from my own playing days. The players all seemed around the same age, and young but not too young. I therefore guessed that it might be an Irish Universities event, which I thought was a team championship, from sometime in the 1950’s.

I showed the picture to J.J. Walsh during my recent visit to Dublin. He noticed that the colours weren’t alternating board-to-board, so that this was probably not a team event. He recognised the player playing Black in the game closest to the camera as Michael Fagan and the one playing White in the game third from the camera as Geoffrey Hand. J.J. played Michael Fagan during the Leinster Schools’ Championship 1949, and after some consideration thought this picture might be of the previous year’s event, i.e., the Leinster Schools’ Championship 1948.

Michael Fagan still plays, for Dublin C.C., for the B.E.A. Cup team. (I’m assuming this is the same player; corrections welcome. FIDE records show him as born in 1932, which fits.)