Irish Championship 1974

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Sources and notes

Sources
ICU web site Scores and places
Magazines "The Irish Championship 1974", William Lewis, BCM 1974 p. 369
Newspapers
  • Evening Herald:
  • "Clubmates lead", July 10, 1974 p. 16
  • "Young Dublin player leads chess contest", July 13, 1974 p. 6
  •  
  • Irish Independent:
  • "Chess", July 6, 1974 p. 13
  • "Internationals out of chess set", July 8, 1974 p. 8
  • "Irish Chess championship", July 9, 1974 p. 12
  • "Clubmates lead at Lincoln Place", July 10, 1974 p. 10
  • "Tony Doyle becomes Irish chess champion", July 15, 1974 p. 12
  •  
  • Irish Press:
  • "Chess", July 8, 1974 p. 13
  • "Chess", July 9, 1974 p. 11
  • "Chess", July 13, 1974 p. 14
  • "Chess", July 15, 1974 p. 11
  •  
  • Irish Times:
  • "28 entrants for Irish Chess Championship", July 6, 1974 p. 15
  • "4 share lead in chess championship", July 9, 1974 p. 4
  • "Lead shared in chess championship", July 10, 1974 p. 4
  • "Doyle leads in Irish chess championship", July 11, 1974 p. 11
  • "Doyle maintains chess lead", July 12, 1974 p. 9
  • "Doyle has point lead in championship", July 13, 1974 p. 7
  • "Doyle undefeated in chess win", July 15, 1974 p. 5
  • "The New Irish Champion", July 18, 1974 p. 16


Notes
Key In "Pairings & results",
  • "age" denotes the player's age on his or her birthday that year (even if the birthday fell after the event)
  • "x-ch" denotes former Irish champions
  • "ch#" denotes the number of championships the player played in, including this one
  • "ol" denotes members of the previous Olympiad team (Nice 1974)

In round bulletins,
  • "()" denotes colours unknown
Discrepancies
  • The Irish Independent, July 9, 1974 p. 12 and Irish Press, July 9, 1974 p. 11 give Dennehy as defeating A. Jackson in round 2, with no mention of McDaid or Cassidy, whereas the Irish Times gives Dennehy bt. McDaid and Cassidy bt. A. Jackson; the first two reports were probably due to a printing or other reporting error.
  • The Evening Herald, Irish Independent, and Irish Times reports of July 10, 1974 each give G. Jackson as defeating McCormick in round 3, but the BCM final scores, together with all other results, implies the opposite; for this report the version derived from BCM is taken to be the correct one.
  • The Irish Times, July 15, 1974 p. 5, gives Devenney as defeating McCarthy in round 7, and the result is not available in other papers, but taken together with other results this is inconsistent with the final scores reported in BCM, which imply the reverse result; since Devenney would have finished joint second under the Irish Times version, which would be inconsistent with all reports, the BCM version must be the correct one.
  • The BCM report says that Doyle beat Kernan and then drew with Cassidy and Dennehy (which is how Tony Doyle had remembered it), whereas the Irish Times review says Doyle played Kernan in the penultimate round. The Irish Times, Evening Herald, and Irish Press of July 13 all had the Irish Times order, which is the one used in this report.
  • Lewis's report in BCM gives "J. James", "C. McCormick", and "O. MacGuinness".
Adjournments
  • The following games were adjourned according to at least one newspaper report:
  •  
  • James - Lewis (1)
  • Lewis - Blair (2)
  • Cassidy - Noone (5)
  • Gilmore - O'Hare (6)
  • M. Ó Briain - Coldrick (6)
Club Club affiliations for Leinster players are from various newspaper reports of the 1973-74 league season. Affiliations for Blair, Hadden, and McCormick are from the Irish Independent, August 17, 1974 p. 8. Affiliations for Cootes, Gilmore (probable), A. Jackson (probable), G. Jackson, Lynn, O'Hare, and Strawbridge are from David McAlister.
Time control The previous year's time control was 45 moves in 2½ hours for the first session. Records indicate that the 1974 championship also had a 5-hour first session. It was probably 45 moves in 2&frac;12; hours, since Paul Cassidy's notes indicate that he was in tremendous time trouble when he played the losing 45... Qxh2+??.
Draws The event had remarkably few draws: just 16 of the 112 games (1 in 7) were drawn.
Late changes There were several last-minute changes to the participants. Compared to the first-round draw published in the Irish Times on July 6, Rodney Nixon was replaced by Kernan, "B. McCafferty" was replaced by M. Ó Briain, and Matt O'Leary was replaced by Barrington.
Débuts 14 players—half the field—had never played in an Irish championship before. Of these 4, including Paul Hadden, the 15-year-old mentioned in the BCM report, never played again.
Generational shift No former champions played in this event. In part this must have been due to the Nice Olympiad, which ran from June 6-30, 1974, ending six days before this event. But there was also a generational shift in progress: of all Irish champions before 1974, only Michael Littleton ever played an Irish championship after 1974.
Ratings
  • LCU ratings are from the list published in September or October 1972 (Irish Times, October 10, 1972 p. 14)
Versions
  • v1.0 (17 Feb 2018): first posted version
  • v1.1 (13 July 2019): added score of Kernan - Cassidy, round 8 and made corresponding changes throughout; added first name of David Jackson; added note on time control in Sources and Notes → Notes.
Contributors Seán Coffey, David McAlister


IRLchess: Irish chess history & records.
Version 1.1, published 13 July 2019. Comments/corrections? .
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