National Athletic and Cycling Association

The NACA was formed on 19 July 1922, from a merger of the Irish Amateur Athletic Association or IAAA (including its subsidiary the Cross Country Association of Ireland), the Irish Cycling Association (ICA) and the Athletics Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). The GAA was Irish nationalist and mainly rural, while the IAAA and ICA members were mainly unionists, universities, and the urban middle class. The IAAA was linked to the Amateur Athletic Association of England (AAA). The unionist-dominated Northern Ireland and the nationalist Irish Free State had recently been separated politically, and the GAA was prepared to surrender its authority to ensure national unity in athletics and cycling and avoid a division which would reinforce the reality of partition. The GAA after 1923 thus restricted itself to Gaelic games, ceding athletics and cycling to NACA, with which it remained on friendly terms. John J. Keane, previously Chairman of the GAA Athletic Council, became first NACA President. Whereas the GAA had a ban on members of the RUC and British Army, the NACA narrowly voted not to introduce such a measure. The NACA affiliated to the IAAF on 11 January 1924, and sent teams to the Olympics of 1924, 1928, and 1932. It also sent five athletes to the 1930 British Empire Games in Canada. In each case, the team was claimed to represent "Ireland" rather than the Irish Free State. In 1937, the National Cycling Association (NCA) was formed as a NACA subsidiary for cycling clubs, and affiliated to the UCI. The Rás Tailteann was its headline event, an 8-day stage race whose name reflected the Tailteann Games. ==Splits and isolation==

Already by 1925 there was a split, with the Northern Ireland Amateur Athletic, Cycling and Cross Country Association (NIAAA) formed over a dispute concerning an Easter Monday sports meeting in Belfast, which as well as athletics featured greyhound racing and associated betting, which had been allowed by the IAAA but not by NACA. Since the meeting was to raise funds for Belfast Celtic F.C., with an Irish nationalist fanbase, the NACA alienated nationalists as well as unionists in Belfast. In 1931, Eoin O'Duffy was president of the NACA, and raised at the IAAF the dispute with the British AAA over jurisdiction over Northern Ireland. The IAAF deferred a decision till its conference at the 1932 Olympics. However, the proposal foundered when an NACA general meeting insisted that the flag used at international events be the Irish tricolour rather than the IAAU flag. The IAAF decided in 1932 not to intervene in the Northern jurisdiction dispute. Most Irish athletics clubs remained in NACA, and it was NACA that was affiliated to the Irish Olympic Council, though it was AAUE athletes who competed at the Olympics. Ronnie Delany's gold medal in the 1956 1500 m was not mentioned at the next NACA executive meeting. In 1959, Tom O'Riordan's scholarship with the Idaho State Bengals was jeopardised when he ran for his local NACA club while visiting home in Tralee. The AAUE, whose Secretary Louis Vandendries was on holiday, reported him to the IAAF, which suspended him; upon Vandendries' return he defused the controversy by informing the IAAF that O'Riordan was now in good standing with the AAUE. The UCI emulated the IAAF in 1947 by requiring the NCA to disclaim Northern Ireland, expelling it when it refused. In 1949, several clubs broke away from the NCA to form (CRE), which would restrict its area of jurisdiction to the Republic of Ireland. The CRE was recognised by the UCI, as was the Northern Ireland Cycling Federation (NICF), formed the same year and linked to the British Cycling Federation. The NACA retained some international links, through the International Labour Sports Federation (CSIT). Joe Christle, NCA official and organiser of the Rás Tailteann, was both a socialist and physical force republican. ==Dissolution==

In 1979, the Irish Cycling Tripartite Committee (ICTC) was formed to link the NCA, NICF, and ICF (Irish Cycling Federation, the successor to the CRE). ==Presidents==

The presidents of the NACA were: ==References==