Joe Kelly

Joe Kelly was educated at St Finbarr’s College, Farranferris, a Cork school renowned for producing some of Ireland’s leading hurlers over the years, and Kelly was one of them. A dual Irish champion, Kelly won the GAA All-Ireland hurling title with Cork in 1944 and 1946, and between 1945-47 won six National Athletic and Cyclists’ Association of Ireland (NACAI) athletics titles at five distances: 100 yards (1945, 1947), 220 (1947), 300 (1945), 440 (1947), and long jump (1946).

Selected for the 1948 London Olympics, Kelly never got his chance to perform in the largest stage because he was a member of the National Athletic and Cyclists’ Association of Ireland (NACAI), who were suspended by the IAAAF in 1937. Because they refused to confine their activities to the then Irish Free State, their members were not allowed to compete at the Olympics by the IOC. Kelly was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1949 and in September of that year emigrated to start a new life in New Zealand, working in the Diocese of Christchurch. He also spread the gospel of hurling to residents, as he introduced them to the sport that had made him famous. 12,000 miles away.