The Irish American Athletic Club was an amateur athletic organization, based in Queens, New York, at the beginning of the 20th century.
Early years
Established on January 30, 1898, originally as the "Greater New York Irish Athletic Association", they shortened the name to the Irish American Athletic Club a few years later. They purchased a plot of land in what was then called Laurel Hill, Long Island, near Calvary Cemetery, Queens, and built a state-of-the-art athletic facility on what was farmland.[1] The stadium, called Celtic Park, formally reopened after renovations on May 9, 1901, and until the facility was sold for housing in 1930, some of the greatest American athletes trained or competed on Celtic Park's track and field.[2] The Irish American Athletic Club adopted a winged fist adorned with American flags and shamrocks as their emblem, with the Irish Gaelic motto ‘Láim[Sic] Láidir Abú’ or ‘A strong hand will be victorious,' and were often referred to as the 'Winged Fists'. At one time they had clubs in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Yonkers, New York.[3]
The Irish American Athletic Club won the Amateur Athletic Union national outdoor track and field team championship titles in; 1904, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914 and 1916. They also won the national indoor track and field team championship titles in; 1906, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1913, 1914 and 1915. Individual athletes of the IAAC won 81 national outdoor championships titles and 36 individual national indoor championship titles.[7] From 1900 to 1924, men who were at one time members of the Irish American Athletic Club won 54 Olympic medals for the U.S. Olympic team,[8] including 26 gold medals.
"With a grand total of 2,001 points gained by their track and field men in 1910, the Irish-American Athletic Club had put to its credit a score said to be greater than that of any similar aggregation of athletes during any single year," according to the New York Times. "Eighty-nine men contributed to this splendid showing, gaining points only in track and field games."[10]
In 1912–13, 1913–14, 1914–15 and 1916–17 the Irish American Athletic Club had a team, the New York Irish-Americans, represented in the American Amateur Hockey League.[11] The team was coached by James C. "Jimmy" O'Brien and had on its roster for various seasons future NHL players Tom McCarthy and Moylan McDonnell. John McGrath and Patsy Séguin also played for the club.
Final championship title – 1916
Before the largest crowd that had ever assembled to see a track meet in the United States, on September 9, 1916, the Irish American Athletic Club defeated the New York Athletic Club at the Amateur Athletic Union's National Championships, by a score of 38 to 27. Before a crowd of 30,000 spectators at Newark, New Jersey's Weequahic Park,[12] the Irish-American Athletic Club won what would be their last national championship title. The club disbanding a year later, when the U.S. became a combatant in the First World War.
Katchen, Alan (2008). Abel Kiviat, National Champion: Twentieth-Century Track & Field and the Melting Pot. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. ISBN978-0-8156-0939-1.
Lee, Joseph; Casey, Marion (2006). Making the Irish American: History and Heritage of the Irish in the United States. New York: Glucksman Ireland House / NYU Press. ISBN978-0-8147-5208-1.
McCarthy, Kevin (2010). Gold, Silver and Green: The Irish Olympic Journey 1896–1924. Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press. ISBN978-1-85918-458-5.