The Forgotten Powerhouse: Analyzing the Brief Rise to Prominence of Lawn Tennis in Ireland in the Late-Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Within the historiography of lawn tennis in Ireland, there remains considerable scope to discern how the sport rose to prominence – reaching its apex in the early 1890s – among the wealthy landed classes, and what influence it had upon the structure and culture of the sport globally. This is set against the assumed view of lawn tennis being a rather marginal sport during the late-nineteenth century when the fight for popularity between native Irish and British team sports dominated media narratives. Separated from much of this commotion, lawn tennis helped to forge landed aristocratic/gentry identity within urban/suburban locales across Ireland – principally in Dublin, where its leading clubs and championship were regarded almost on a par with its equivalents in London – and also emancipate Irish sportswomen, and a small number of working-class coaching-professionals who plied their trade in the leading clubs. Given the broader historical context of increasing land agitation and subsequent rising Irish populist nationalism, the growth of lawn tennis in itself remains an interesting phenomenon. Thus, the brief rise to prominence of tennis in Ireland, and specifically Dublin, is examined, contextualized within broader socio-cultural and politico-religious developments that pervaded the organization of Irish society, and British-Irish relations, during this time.