Donnelly's Arm travels again

The right arm of the 19th century pugilist Dan Donnelly, owned by the Byrne family, has gone on its travels again.



This time it is once more a key part of the 'Fighting Irishmen' exhibition in which it starred at two venues in New York and one in Boston over the last couple of years. But the exhibition has now moved to the Ulster-American Folk Museum in Omagh, Co Tyrone.

The exhibition was gathered together by New York realtor Jim Houlihan, a patron of the Irish Arts Centre in New York. Among the other artifacts and pictures on display are the legendary John L Sullivan's fur coat; a blazer specially made for Jack Dempsey; photographs from the archives of ‘Sports Illustrated’; Charlie Nash's Olympic jersey when he was fighting for Ireland; photographs of the classic Micky Ward vs Arturo Gatti trilogy; and historic photos of such memorable Irish fighters as John L Sullivan, James J Braddock, Billy Conn, Jerry Quarry, Gerry Cooney, Barry McGuigan and Bobby Cassidy, just to name a few.

The arm has been lent to the exhibition by Josephine Byrne, wife of the late Des Byrne who ran the famous Hideout for many years.

The mummified limb, which had been taken from the pugilist and preserved by a surgeon after his death, ended up in the Hideout in the early 1950s, after being in a travelling show for decades and eventually ending up in the ownership of Belfast bookmaker and publican Hugh McAlevy. He presented it to Des Byrne's father, Jim, after an An Tostal pageant recreation of Donnelly's famous fight with English bare-knuckle champion George Cooper at what has since been known as Donnelly's Hollow.

Josephine and other members of the family were at the official opening of the Omagh exhibition recently. The arm, which only came back to Kilcullen in recent months after its travels in America, will also feature in a documentary on TG4 due to be screened in September.

The production, exploring the life of Donnelly, will include interviews with Josephine, and with the fighter's biographer Pat Myler, shot recently in Bardon's pub in Kilcullen. Local saddler Jim Berney, who played the part of Donnelly in the 1950s pageants, was also interviewed for the documentary.