Seventy years since 'iron man' Christy Foley won national boxing title

Dunshaughlin man Christy Foley is best known for his association with his family business, Foley’s Forge, but he has another string to his bow – 70 years ago, he became the first Meath man to win a national boxing championship.
On 18th March 1950, in a surprise victory, 22-year-old Christy beat Pat Buckley of Cork to become Irish Senior Lightweight Champion. Buckley had defeated European champion, Maxie McCullagh, in the first round of the lightweight campaign.

Christy and his four brothers were known as ‘the Fighting Foleys’ and were members of Dunshaughlin Boxing Club, a prominent club in a popular sport at the time. 
Contemporary newspapers called the lightweight final at Dublin’s National Boxing Stadium a terrific slugging match which was packed with excitement from start to finish, and which had the stadium in uproar.
“Buckley met a man who could not only stand up and slog it out with him, but was also cleverer,” one report stated. “Foley is a strong and courageous battler who has been boxing since he was 15 and has won 47 of his 57 contests,” declared another. Thirty-two of these were knock-outs.
Christy Foley began his boxing career with the Hurst brothers who lived at Lagore, Hubert, George and Peter, and who had began to teach the art of self-defence to local youngsters.  A boxing club then developed, with training taking place in the workhouse. Training was fairly tough, with young lads climbing from one floor to another using ropes, and then running through the building. 

 

The Dunshaughlin boxers were fighting at ‘flapper meetings’, which meant that they weren’t under rules, Christy recalls. The fights took place in marquees, and at Madden’s Garage for a few years. 
“I remember a challenge between the jockeys at the Curragh, and our club,” says Christy. 
“The fights were in the workhouse and there was a good crowd sitting around the ring, betting. I remember Benny (his brother) fighting Jimmy Eddery, who was father of jockey, Pat. We were as hard as nails!” 
The arrival of Sergeant Dan O’Connell in Dunshaughlin saw further progress, and he organised for the club to be affiliated with the IABI. The Hursts didn’t agree with this, and ceased to be involved with the club.
Christy pays wholesome tribute to the Hursts for getting the club started, but says that once they were affiliated, the Dunshaughlin boxers flourished. 
His first appearance on a roll of honour was in 1946, when he won the County Dublin featherweight league.
“We were allowed fight in the Dublin leagues because of our proximity to Dublin,” he says. As a corporal in the FCA, he was entitled to fight for the Army, and captured the Eastern Command Featherweight tithe the following year. In 1948, he was runner-up in the Irish Junior Championship, and in the same year he became junior featherwight champion of the Army’s Eastern Command. He also took a number of Meath titles. 
Christy Foley represented Ireland internationally on a number of occasions, and was on Irish teams that travelled to Germany, England, and Italy, to take part in competition. One of the highlights of his career was meeting Pope Pius XII in Rome. His brother Joe, a SMA missionary priest now living in Cork, also represented the country internationally.

He recalled his encounter with Fergus Gilmartin, who had just returned from Finland having won seven fights out of seven. Gilmartin, a weight heavier than Christy, was due to fight a Northern Ireland boxer who pulled out. Christy met Gilmartin, who he describes a s ‘a gentleman’, in the challenge, and had him on the canvas in every round.
“I couldn’t believe he dropped,” he says. “But I didn’t get the verdict. We were only lads coming up from the country, and he was a well-established boxer. The only paper that gave me a good write-up was the Times.” Gilmartin only fought once more after that.
Christy says he made a lot of friends through boxing, and enjoyed it immensely. 
“It was strictly amateur, and I loved it.”
Chairman of the Meath County Boxing Board for some years, he retired from boxing around the time of his marriage to his late wife, Mary O’Flaherty, in 1954.
Sgt Dan O’Connell summed him up: “Christy’s a very spirited boxer. A hard hitter, full of pluck and grit, who will not be overawed by the record of his opponents. His quiet and unassuming disposition, cool boxing, and hard hitting are his characteristics.”

Joe, Christy, Seamus, Paddy, Benny and Podger Foley.

It was the Irish Independent that christened the brothers ‘the Fighting Foleys’. The Independent wrote: “It was said that while their father had it in his feet – he was an All-Ireland dancing champion – the lads had it in their fists!”

Christy was also highly accomplished in his professional career. His family had been working as blacksmiths since the mid-nineteenth century, in the Kilmessan and Dunshaughlin areas, and still operate from Dunshaughlin, where his great grandfather, William, established a business in 1845. Christy joined as a farrier in the 1940s, shoeing horses on local estates.  

He also wanted to do ornamental work, and won a scholarship to Ardee Technical School, then to Bolton Street College. In 1951, the year after his boxing win, he won the Championship of Ireland when he was awarded the An Tostal Shield for wrought ironwork, beating off competition from the major ironwork companies with a firescreen.

So Chrsity Foley is truly an ironman, in more ways than one!

Gathered at Christy Foley's 70th birthday party in the Arch Bar, Dunshaughlin, in 1997 were fellow boxing legends, back, from left, Dinny Morrison and Fr Joe Foley, his brother; and front, Maxie McCullagh, Willie Duggan, Christy, and Paddy Buckley from that famous 1950 fight.