Ireland (IRL)

Ireland formed a National Olympic Committee in 1922, shortly after it became independent of Great Britain in December 1921. Ireland first competed as a separate state in the 1924 Olympic Games at Paris. Prior to that time, however, many Irish athletes had competed – mostly for Great Britain. In addition many of the great American weight-throwers had been recent Irish emigrants. Ireland also entered separate teams in 1908 field hockey and the 1912 cycling road race, although both were technically second teams representing Great Britain. Since 1924, Ireland has competed at every Olympic Games except those of 1936.

Through 2022, Ireland has won 38 Olympic medals, all at the Summer Olympics: 11 gold, 11 silver, and 16 bronze. One Irish athlete has won four medals – swimmer Michelle Smith, with three golds and one bronze, all won in 1996. She is followed by hammer thrower Pat O’Callaghan (two gold), rower Paul O’Donovan (one silver and one bronze), and boxer Paddy Barnes (two bronze).

Ireland has competed at the Olympic Winter Games in 1992 and continuously since 1998, represented by athletes competing in Alpine skiing, bobsleigh, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, luge, skeleton, and snowboarding.

Ireland has not won a medal at the Olympic Winter Games, but it came close in 2002, when Clifton Hugh Lancelot de Verdon Wrottesley, the 6th Baron Wrottesley, finished fourth in men’s skeleton. His father, a former racer on the Cresta Run, had a reputation as a playboy and eloped to Las Vegas to marry his mother when she was just 18. The family settled in Ireland, where Clifton was born, but mother and son later moved to Spain after the death of his father in a car accident, when he was just 2-years-old. He inherited the title of 6th Baron Wrottesley on the death of his grandfather in 1977. Wrottesley was educated at Eton School, Edinburgh University, and Sandhurst Military Academy, and spent two years in the British Army before becoming a stockbroker in the City of London. Baron Wrottesley began sliding on the Cresta Run in 1988 and became the most successful slider in the history of the track, winning a record number of victories in each of the St. Moritz track’s four classic races.