Page 231 - Gonzaga at 60
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GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
Compeiive swimming is tough. It is character forming. It takes great dedicaion and perseverance
and it entails sacriices. But it is also great fun and there are memorable rewards.
A small school without a swimming pool is highly unlikely to produce enough talented
swimmers capable of compeing individually or of forming a team to represent it at provincial
and naional championships. Gonzaga in the early years was no excepion.
The arrival in the 1960s of Fr John O’Leary SJ (“Dynamite”) created the irst ripples, then
a surge, of interest in swimming. Bolstered by the enthusiasm and support of Sir John Galvin,
father of three Gonzaga boys, Sean, Michael and Mark. A double-decker bus was hired once a
week during the winter and spring terms to take pupils from Prep 3 up to Senior 2 to the Iveagh
Baths. During an hour-long session, John Galvin and swimming instructor Jack Smith, both track-
suited and armed with loud whistles, supervised and gave coaching in the various strokes and
techniques.
The sessions were efecive and well structured. Undoubtedly it was from these lessons
that a few swimmers with talent progressed privately to compeiion with swimming clubs. From
my own class, Tim Meagher (now a professor of Accident and Emergency Medicine in Montreal)
gained his internaional cap on the Irish 4 x 100m Men’s Freestyle relay team in his inal year at
school. He sill competes at a very high Masters level. Michael Galvin became an excellent diver.
Other contemporaries include a fearless water polo player, Tom Hogan (consultant anaestheist
at Beaumont), and a 100m Freestyle exponent, Liam McMullan (also a doctor!).
When Fr O’Leary let Gonzaga, the Iveagh Baths programme came to an end. It would have
required enormous coninuing support from parents to match John Galvin’s generous input.
Swimming slipped of Gonzaga’s co-curricular screen.
A golden era of Gonzaga swimming came much later, taking the school authoriies
completely by pleasant surprise.
A countrywide municipal and community swimming pools building programme in the
1970s introduced swimming as a recreaion and a sport to huge numbers of young people.
Ambiious swimmers were encouraged to hone their talent by joining compeiive clubs. Numbers
of registered compeiive swimmers increased dramaically and young Irish compeitors began
to achieve internaional success. Enthusiasm and paricipaion grew fast.
Following the closure of the Prep school and the doubling in size of the Senior School,
the number of boys (now aged twelve) arriving at the school already accomplished in a variety
of sports, including swimming at a compeiive level, increased. In 1996 a number of parents,
seeing that such swimmers could also represent their school, went about designing Gonzaga
Swim Team caps and polo shirts to create a Gonzaga poolside visibility and presence at the
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
Compeiive swimming is tough. It is character forming. It takes great dedicaion and perseverance
and it entails sacriices. But it is also great fun and there are memorable rewards.
A small school without a swimming pool is highly unlikely to produce enough talented
swimmers capable of compeing individually or of forming a team to represent it at provincial
and naional championships. Gonzaga in the early years was no excepion.
The arrival in the 1960s of Fr John O’Leary SJ (“Dynamite”) created the irst ripples, then
a surge, of interest in swimming. Bolstered by the enthusiasm and support of Sir John Galvin,
father of three Gonzaga boys, Sean, Michael and Mark. A double-decker bus was hired once a
week during the winter and spring terms to take pupils from Prep 3 up to Senior 2 to the Iveagh
Baths. During an hour-long session, John Galvin and swimming instructor Jack Smith, both track-
suited and armed with loud whistles, supervised and gave coaching in the various strokes and
techniques.
The sessions were efecive and well structured. Undoubtedly it was from these lessons
that a few swimmers with talent progressed privately to compeiion with swimming clubs. From
my own class, Tim Meagher (now a professor of Accident and Emergency Medicine in Montreal)
gained his internaional cap on the Irish 4 x 100m Men’s Freestyle relay team in his inal year at
school. He sill competes at a very high Masters level. Michael Galvin became an excellent diver.
Other contemporaries include a fearless water polo player, Tom Hogan (consultant anaestheist
at Beaumont), and a 100m Freestyle exponent, Liam McMullan (also a doctor!).
When Fr O’Leary let Gonzaga, the Iveagh Baths programme came to an end. It would have
required enormous coninuing support from parents to match John Galvin’s generous input.
Swimming slipped of Gonzaga’s co-curricular screen.
A golden era of Gonzaga swimming came much later, taking the school authoriies
completely by pleasant surprise.
A countrywide municipal and community swimming pools building programme in the
1970s introduced swimming as a recreaion and a sport to huge numbers of young people.
Ambiious swimmers were encouraged to hone their talent by joining compeiive clubs. Numbers
of registered compeiive swimmers increased dramaically and young Irish compeitors began
to achieve internaional success. Enthusiasm and paricipaion grew fast.
Following the closure of the Prep school and the doubling in size of the Senior School,
the number of boys (now aged twelve) arriving at the school already accomplished in a variety
of sports, including swimming at a compeiive level, increased. In 1996 a number of parents,
seeing that such swimmers could also represent their school, went about designing Gonzaga
Swim Team caps and polo shirts to create a Gonzaga poolside visibility and presence at the
