 |
 |
Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
|
|
|
|
|
|
© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
15 September 2026
This is a page for news about Irish players who are 50 years of age or older.
We also invite you to read our main Irish news page and international Seniors news and Seniors calendar pages.
Two Irish teams recently competed with mixed results at Hersonissos, on the Greek island of Crete, in the European Senior Team Championships. Play concluded on the 4th of September. A report on the winners can be read in our page dedicated to that event.
There were two outstanding individual performances by Irish players at the event. FM John Delaney was unbeaten on top board in the 50+, and he came close to winning his games against GMs Lubomir Ftacnik and Stuart Conquest.
Donal O'Boyle lost only one game on board four for the 65s. These two were the mainstay of their teams and both earned a heap of rating points while the other players lost points.
The Irish senior squad before the first round. From left: Joe O'Hanlon, Tim Harding, Gerry MacElligott, Gabriel Matthews, Donal O'Boyle, Brendan Lyons, John Delaney, and Vjekoslav Novak. Photo by Carol Lyons.
In summary, the 65+ team finished on 6 match points (two matches won, two drawn and five lost) and finished 15th of 18 teams, exactly our initial seeding. Round 4 was a golden day when both teams won.
The 50+ team, who had been 14th seed of the 14 teams, scored one win (against England-4) and two draws. This earned 4MP and meant they finished 13th, ahead of England-4.
In Thursday's round 8, the 65+ team were paired with the home team, Ageless of Crete, and the games started to be broadcast live on Lichess. The first two to finish were fully transmitted but, fortunately for Gerry and Donal, the broadcast failed before the end. So the world did not see their decisive blunders in a match we had looked like drawing, if not winning, which would have seen us finish at least one place higher. These things happen a lot in senior chess.
The 65+ team would have had a better result had not one player decided to make a personal protest about Palestine, refusing to play Israeli opponents, although it has to be said that he did this in a polite and friendly way. Unfortunately our team was paired at various stages with all three Israeli teams in the section and, thus handicapped, we only managed one drawn match from the three.
Quite a lot of comment was made to us about this matter, with some people saying they thought this behaviour was quite inappropriate for a senior tournament. Nobody else refused to play Israelis.
Three players aged over 65 competed in the 105th Irish championship in which the average age of players was about 20. Gerry O'Connell reached 5.5/9 with a strong finish that should see his FIDE rating go back over 2000 in September. Tim Harding scored 5 with a rating gain also; it may be noted that he played most of his games against higher-rated opposition because his score was never below 50%. Anthony Fox had more mixed fortunes and finished on 4 points.
There were eventually 12 entries for an Irish seniors tournament over five rounds at Stillorgan during the second weekend of the Irish championships. The 50+ and 65+ had to be combined. Joe Noone and Sean Nolan shared first with 4.5/5.
The Kilkenny Chess Congress (20-22 November) will again hold the FIDE-rated Seniors event that they began in 2025, but as an event for players aged 60+ this time. The venue will be the Club House Hotel. There are details on the ICU website, where you can download an entry form (MS Word document).
Also please save these dates for next year: the 2027 World Senior Team Championships will probably be played from 31 March to 11th April in Magdeburg, Germany. So it starts just after Easter which falls early next year. FIDE has yet to confirm the venue and dates which have been announced by the German Chess Federation two months ago. For more about this, please visit our Seniors news page.
See our Senior calendar for more details of events for the over-50s and our seniors news page for more information about tournaments for the over-50s.