Referee (Sydney) 4th December, 1918 p8 (abridged)
Wikimedia Commons –
Last week when discussing famous Irish athletes in connection with the running hop, step and jump, the name of Mat. Roseingrave, of Gort, cropped up, and I promised to give some particulars of his career in Australasia.
Roseingrave, as we knew him, was the beau ideal of an athlete — tall and symmetrical in build — and he knew from A to Z all the fine points of athletics,especially in the jumping, hurdling and field game departments. I suppose most people who saw him in action will say he was at his best as a jumper in general and a broad jumper in particular.
M. M. Roseingrave arrived in Sydney early in 1896 — I heard of his coming from Mr. T. M. Malone. At any rate he made his debut here at the St. Patrick’s Day sports in Sydney, on March 17, 1896. He had entered in four events, and it devolved upon the writer to handicap the boy from Galway, although I had but a hazy notion of his athletic capacity.
In those days we had two first-class hurdlers in the late W. G. Cole and B. H. Richards. Roseingrave beat Richards by a yard in 19sec. Later on the Irishman won the running broad jump at 22ft l01/2in (a record for these parts.), the running high jump at 5ft 7m, and was second in the 161b shot putt handicap, his actual putt being 30ft 9in. It was quite a sensational start.
The Burren and Beyond 
Hello,
Matthew (Matt) Mark Roseingrave, born in Curtaun, Cnty Galway, Ireland in 1873 and died in Auckland, New Zealand in 1949, was my grandfather.
Recently, I was copied into an email introducing me to an Eamon Healy, an Historian and Genealogist from County Galway, who has begun compiling a blog on the life and times of my grandfather, M. M. Roseingrave.
The blog is titled: Matt, “the Boy from Galway” Roseingrave (1873-1949) – 1896 World Record Jumper & Champion of the Athletic Arena – BeaghRootsGalway.
I have already added some information to what Eamon has so far written about my grandfather’s early life in Ireland. However, I will be gathering as much information about the few years he spent here in Australia, and more particularly, in New Zealand, where he continued to compete in athletics, worked, married Delia Cunningham, fathered an only son (my father, William (Bill) John Matthew Roseingrave, 1908-1986) and lived the majority of his life.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to add some personal notes to the Mat Roseingrave, Gort – 1918 story, published in The Burren and Beyond.
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