- "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 team selected (before the championship) for the Olympiad later that year (Manila 1982)
However, newspaper articles before, during, and immediately after the final round reported that Dunne would win on tie-break in the (actual) case of a three-way tie, and the preliminary report submitted by the Controller to the ICU (Fiacla Fichille, vol. 1, no. 7 (September 1982), p. 20) said that Dunne was declared winner; the Evening Echo (December 7, 1982 p. 15) stated that this was on sum of opponents' scores. (With the reconstructed scores here, and with all byes counting in full, Dunne would be on 50, with Delaney and Short tied on 49.)
Delaney appealed, on the basis that the rule announced in the tournament flyer should apply. The appeal was noted ("More Editorial Notes") in the Fiacla Fichille preliminary report. One newspaper article from August (Evening Press) listed Delaney as champion, but another from November (Evening Echo) listed Dunne as champion. Finally, the Evening Echo article from December 7 reported that at an ICU meeting in Dublin the previous Saturday (i.e., December 4) had accepted Delaney's appeal and awarded him the title (his first).
The flyer's description of the tie-break is clear. Presumably the controller announced the sum of opponents' scores rule at the event; otherwise it is hard to imagine why there would have been a delay in deciding the appeal. Evidently the ICU decided that the written rule took priority over the announced one.
It would have been unfortunate if this misunderstanding had decided the title, for example if anyone had agreed a draw based on a mistaken understanding of the rule. In this case, though, Dunne won his last two games, and the only possible impact would have been on his decisions during his round 7 loss against Short. It seems unlikely that anyone's decisions were materially affected.
This was not the first time the award of the title had been changed later. At the 1962 championship in Derry, John Reid, Michael Littleton, Alex Montwill, and Brian Reilly tied for first. The tie-break rule was Sonneborn-Berger. Calculations at the event indicated that Reid had won; he was awarded the trophy and left. It was discovered shortly afterwards that the calculations were wrong, and that Reid and Littleton had tied on Sonneborn-Berger also. Initially it was planned that there would be a playoff match between these two, but later it was announced that they would share the title.
- Alan Ludgate's scoresheets give John Delaney's rating as 2244, rather than 2231 as in the July 1982 list
- John Quigley's preliminary report refers to Gerard MacElligott as “bottom seed”, whereas the July 1982 list has him at 1901, and two other players (Derek McGill) as lower (possibly the organisers used some slightly modified ratings in some cases?)
- FIDE ratings are from the July 1982 list
- ICU ratings are from the July 1982 list
- v1.0 (10 October 2021): first published version