I'm looking through my work trying to find lists for BBBoC and IBU world HW champions I produced and published sometime around 2018 when I came across this unfinished piece. A list of Irish HW champions. Edit- I should have made it more clear, I do not remember this work. It's probably a WIP I forgot about. I wouldn't cite these dates or statuses without checking first. -Edit If it can be useful, here you go: Irish Heavyweight Champions Peter Corcoran 1771 Dan Donnelly 1811 Jack Langan 1823 Simon Byrne 1830 Samuel O'Rourke 1833 Mick Hayden 1842 Yankee Sullivan 1847 Richard O'Baldwin 1866 James Dillon 1874 Paddy Ryan 1878 John Sullivan 1885 James Corbett 1892 Peter Maher 1890 Con Coughlin 1892 Pat Scully 1895 Tom Sharkey 1895 Jem Roche 1905 Packey Mahoney 1905 Bob Brown 1909 Matthew Curran 1909 Dan Voyles 1912 Packey Mahoney 1913 Jem Roche 1913 Con O'Kelly 1914 Bartly Madden 1916 Jim Coffey 1917 Dave Magill 1923 Gene Tunney 1926 Jack Doyle 1932 James Braddock 1935 Tom Currin 1935 Butcher Howell 1938 Ernie Simmons 1940 Chris Cole 1942 Pat Mulcahy 1942 Paddy O'Sullivan 1943 Martin Thornton 1944 Gerry McDemott 1948 Paddy Slavin 1949 Pat Stapleton 1960 Terry O'Connor 1976 Tommy Kiely 1979 Gordon Ferris 1980 Seamus McDonagh 1991 Kevin McBride 1997 Colin Kenna 2008 Coleman Barrett 2010 Martin Rogan 2010 Tyson Fury 2012 Niall Kennedy 2015
If you are referring to people mostly of Irish descent, the list appears correct. Jack Dempsey had Irish ancestry but he also had a mix of other ancestries. So i am not sure if he counts.
Dont know about Tom Currin or Con Coughlan, but Billy Warren and Tom Toner had decent claims. Jack Burke too.
I sometimes stay awake at night wondering why they never made the Tyson Fury-Coleman Barrett superbout.
There’s been some question and controversy for a number of years now over whether Terry Conklin was really Irish: This content is protected
I wasn't being withholding. I don't remember anything about it. I can't say if it is ethnic, body(ies) backed, or why I cobbled it together. Could just be claimants I was researching and refining. I wouldn't put it past Dempsey to claim he's the best Irishman to have ever fought. Americans have always kind of struggled with ethnic identity and to the dismay of their home national often drop diaspora, or at least did until recent history. Just saying it used to be more common for an American to say "I'm Welsh" than "I'm Welsh-American" or whatever ethnicity. I am sure it's an abandoned project. I am also sure some of these names never really get to be talked about and that's the main reason for sharing. These names have lingered too long in obscure documents left by researchers yet to publish a coherent narrative. I really like Sam O'Rourke and the whole story about the English being a bit too head-in-ass for their own good. Bros, no offense, youse modern English are not the level of head-in-ass these dudes were. When you have a champion denying the winner of a vacancy fight he arranged because the winner was, "Not english enough" - Jem Ward, and then you look into this winner and find he was born in London and lived his entire life in England ... you have attained a unique level of head-in-assery not seen since. The cure became the United States for location. The very English challenger who wasn't English enough to be champion, and the Irish champion Sam O'Rouke. Somehow, for the English HW crown though the belt would stay with Ward until Burke, or Burke's lineage(don't remember) lost to a man who was English enough for Ward's standard. It's a ****ing brilliant story that explains a lot of how the "world" title came to be in the later 1800s. I know fans love to learn **** all nothing about the BK boys but they are the context for guys like Fitzs and Maher and such dudes youse do like to talk about. Anyway, I can tell you it a list of fighters worth looking into if you don't know them. Well, the historical names. The modern local lads, you know, couldn't hurt to know them either.
Even if you only consider people born in Ireland, the list is simply ridiculous for a country of that size. If you visit any country in the world, and measure the distance between the railway tracks, you will probably know whether the British or the Irish got there first.
