This is series 2 of An Irishwoman’s Diary from The Deirdre O’Shaughnessy Podcast, search in your podcast app for An Irishwoman’s Diary to find the six-episode Series 1.
She competed in three separate Olympic games; competed for Ireland in hockey, tennis, sailing and cricket, and even won the support of Eamon deValera who sought her out to compliment her “fine race” at Trinity College in the early 1950s.
But Maeve Kyle fought against all the odds, including her own in-laws, when she decided to compete in the Olympics despite having recently become a mother for the first time.
A letter writer to the Irish Time described her as a “disgrace to motherhood” , but she blew off the criticism to become a popular sporting figure and the backbone of athletics in Ireland for many years.
Irish Examiner columnist Clodagh Finn joins Deirdre to discuss the woman who became known, rather inaptly, as ‘The Kilkenny Kitten’.
Read Clodagh’s column here: Clodagh Finn: They called Maeve Kyle a disgrace to motherhood — then she became an Irish Olympic icon
An Irishwoman's Diary series 1: Meet the Irish women who left their mark on history
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