Owen Tuohy

The son of a civil servant, Owen Tuohy was educated at Blackrock College before going to Trinity College Dublin, where he studied oral medicine, and in 1964 he became a lecturer in dental surgery at Queen’s University, Belfast. Tuohy honed his fencing skills at Blackrock, and as a 17-year-old was a substitute for Ireland in the triangular match with England and Scotland. He was only 18, and still at school, when he won the 1940 national sabre title, which he retained the following year.

Although he had been a member of the Dublin Fencing Club for several years, Tuohy also fenced for the famous Achilles Club and in 1945 won the South of Ireland Men’s Open Foil Championship. Tuohy went to the 1948 London Olympics as the reigning national sabre champion, also having finished third in both the foil and épée championships. At the Games he lost all seven of his bouts in the individual foil and in the team foil was on the wrong end of two heavy defeats by France (16-0) and Egypt (9-0). Tuohy was also a fencing referee.