Oarsman, pugilist, doctor and war hero

This article was published in Trinity News on 27 November, 2007.

Oarsman, pugilist, doctor and war hero

Oarsman, pugilist, doctor and war hero: Michael Patrick Leahy was a Trinity man who distinguished himself in his sporting endeavours and remains a model of sportsmanship today, 100 years after he wore the Trinity badge in competition.

Leahy, best known as “Mick” to his contemporaries, came up to Trinity in 1899 to read for a medicine degree. Introduced to rowing by Bram Stoker of Dracula fame, Leahy was lucky to join the Boat Club during one of its healthiest periods. The Dublin University Rowing Club and Dublin University Boat Club had amalgamated in 1898 and moved from Ringsend to placid Islandbridge, where the new boat house and grandstand were built.

Stories of the bad old days were still fresh in the rowers’ minds, and Leahy tells us of the “choppy sea water, with planks, dead rats, and flotsam and jetsam of all kinds” his forbears had to contend with. The flat-calm water of Islandbridge took Trinity’s rowing men in a positive direction, and sights were set on Henley again, which had not been won since DU Rowing Club were successful in the Wyfold Challenge Cup back in 1881.

One of the famous rowing men of the time came to Dublin to coach Leahy and Trinity’s best in 1903. Cambridge man Rudolph Lehmann was determined to see the Trinity crew succeed, and some tough training preceded a hopeful trip to Henley Royal Regatta.

In 1903, the men in black and white travelled to England, hoping to take both the Ladies’ Plate and the Thames Cup at Henley Royal. Magdalen College, Oxford, beat the gallant Dublin oarsmen by just three feet in the Ladies’ final. Leahy recalls that one of his own men was so exhausted after the morning final that he had to be doped with brandy for the Thames final that afternoon! Nonetheless, the nine friends beat Kingston Rowing Club to lift the prize: a Henley victory repeated only once since, when the Ladies’ Plate was won in 1977.

Leahy’s humorous prose shows that he appreciated the coming together of Boat Club men over a few drinks, as he recounts the night of the Henley win:

“Dear old Andy Jameson sent us a crate of champagne, and that night we didn’t know much of what happened on earth. I do remember Arthur McNeight and I determined to put out all the lights in Henley High Street.

“We had nearly completed our mission when the Henley police got into action, but we got the two last lights out, leaving the street in darkness, and then ran. I have painful recollections of scaling a high wall studded with glass, which removed the seat of my trousers and a large portion of my tail. Arthur, the long-legged devil, escaped unhurt.”

Familiar to anyone who puts effort into sport in college, Leahy’s academic progress wasn’t helped by his dedication to the greater cause of sporting glory. He passed his half-MB examination on the fourth effort and remembers gleefully the Professor of Anatomy delivering the news: “Leahy, I congrratulate you!” said Professor Cunningham. “You’ve displayed the maximum of ability. You got through on the minimum of marks. You got one mark more than was necessary.”

After taking the lead as captain of the Boat Club in 1904, the talented Leahy turned his attention to boxing. Boxing in college was in its infancy during Leahy’s time, and was overseen by the Dublin University Gymnastic and Lawn Tennis Club.

Mick, his brother Eugene, and a band of Trinity men were Ireland’s top fighters of the time. Leahy himself was the most successful, beating all comers to take Trinity’s heavyweight championship in 1905 and 1906 and the Irish amateur heavyweight championship in 1908 and 1909. He represented Ireland against Scotland in 1913.

Leahy joined the Royal Army Medical Corp after taking his MB in 1906. He had his leg blown off while serving in Flanders in September 1914. Captain Leahy, as he was by then, was taken prisoner and remained captive until the following July.

A missing leg and a war experience like Leahy’s would mark most people’s retirement from sport. His friend and rowing coach Professor Ernest Julian had been killed in Gallipoli, and he undoubtedly lost many other close friends during the Great War.

But Leahy’s sporting nature was unhurt, and he was back in the ring in 1917. He beat Sergeant Norfolk, also lacking a leg, in a charity match which helped raise funds for boxing equipment for troops still serving in France.

He is remembered in the RAMC as the army champion heavyweight boxer who trained at Millbank and, “pivoting round on his artificial leg, he met the onslaught of all comers, giving a good deal more than he received”.

He never forgot his rowing roots, and had managed to row for Leander after the war. Trinity returned to Henley in 1923, trying again for the Ladies’ and the Thames, which were won in the end by Trinity Oxford and Trinity Cambridge respectively.

Leahy, by then raised to the rank of Major, was delighted to see his successors back at Henley, and wrote a long letter of encouragement to the oarsmen, to be published in the College weekly, TCD.

Henley was a regular destination for Leahy. He was there in 1934 and 1946, urging on the men in black and white as they lost in final of the Ladies’ both years to Jesus College, Cambridge. He returned in 1953 to commemorate the glory of 1903, sculling the famous course in his old zephyr, recalling old crewmates, such as Jack Langrishe, who had since died.

Leahy died in December 1965 at Bramley in England. His recollection of rowing through Dublin city brings a smile to today’s oarsmen, and exemplifies his attitude to life and sport. Dublin’s undesirables have not changed their ways: Leahy says they, then as now, “lined the bridges and dropped anything from pebbles to brickbats on us as we shot the bridges.”

But, says Mick, “life is fun, and that was great fun”.