Ireland has a rich history of cross-country, which has been strongly sustained, by a large reservoir of athletes, coaches and officials. The following are some random (and perhaps rambling!) snippets and personal reflections over the years.

• Deirdre Nagle holds the record (13) for women and Neil Cusack (11) for men for world/international cross-country representation
• Current Irish champion, Ann Keenan-Buckley made her debut in 1985 and will be competing for the 11th time in Leopardstown
• John Woods competed for Ireland in ten championships as did multi-national cross-country champion Gerry Deegan
• Current CEO of the Irish Sports Council, John Treacy competed in 9 senior championships and 2 junior championships. John won gold in Glasgow at the ripe old age of 20 and repeated that victory in Limerick. At 16 he won a bronze in the junior race and replicated that performance the following year
• Jim Hogan (Cregan) first Irishman in Leopardstown 1964 (5th place) went on to represent Great Britain and won the European Marathon in 1966
• Tom O'Riordan, doyen of Irish athletic journalists was 2nd Irishman home in Leopardstown (15th place) in 1964
• Derek Graham from Northern Ireland who finished 32nd in Leopardstown went on to finish 2nd in Rabat in 1966 and had a highly successful track career with Great Britain
• Is Dougie Coard (98) who competed in the International cross-country for Ireland in 1925, 1930 and 1938 the oldest surviving competitor?
  That wonderful gentleman, the late great Tim Smythe who won the International cross-country in Baldoyle in 1931 was the official starter in Leopardstown in 1964.
• Jerry Kiernan, team manager this year, finished 26th in 1982 and 29th in 1983 in the World Championships

A distant memory now but the postal and telephone strike around the time of the World cross-country in 1979 created havoc for the organisers. A unusual fallout from this was that the Post Office had agreed to issue a commemorative stamp in honour of the occasion but because of the strike it only issued 5 months after the championships!

Sad reflections from Limerick are the deaths in the intervening period of Tony Brien (scoring member of the Senior team - a wonderful guy); Bill Coghlan, President of the organising committee and the man responsible for procuring the sponsorship for the event from Kerrygold, and Sean Fitzell, course designer and a lifetime committed to the sport as an athlete and administrator.

On the positive side form Limerick was the wise investment of the profits (some of us young turks wanted to spend the money) by the treasurer Paddy McGovern which ultimately resulted in the purchase of the AAI headquarters in Prospect Road.

The meeting director from Limerick, Al Guy, is now a council member of the European Athletic Association and senior member of the IAAF Technical Committee.

The media play an important role in promoting our sport. In recent years major figures - who seemed to have been around forever - have departed. We will especially miss Dave Guiney, Brendan O'Reilly and Jimmy Meagan from this great event.

Previous editions of the International/World cross-country championships were held in Ireland as follows:

1905 - Baldoyle, Dublin
1910 - Belvoir Park, Belfast
1920 - Belvoir Park, Belfast
1925 - Baldoyle, Dublin
1931 - Baldoyle, Dublin
1938 - Balmoral, Belfast
1949 - Baldoyle, Dublin
1956 - Balmoral, Belfast
1964 - Leopardstown, Dublin
1979 - Greenpark Racecourse, Limerick
1999 - Belfast

Thanks to AAI's Liam Hennessy at:lhennessy@eircom.ie for this information.