Following last Monday’s post about the casino at Marino (Casino Royale, March 25th) a regular reader sent me the image above. This shows the Irish Croquet Championships in 1874 which evidently took place in the grounds of Marino just a few years before the place was sold by the Caulfeild family.
Many people regard croquet as the archetypal English game but in fact its origins lie in mid-19th century Ireland: in August 1858 The Field published a piece on The Rules of the Oatlands Club by ‘Corncrake’ the pseudonym of George Annesley Pollock who lived at Oatlands, County Meath. Here and in other local houses he and his friends often played croquet. The oldest extant croquet club is in Cobh (formerly Queenstown), County Cork. The Rushbrooke Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club was founded in 1870, initially just for playing croquet, tennis being added ten years later.
With thanks to Rose Anne White for the image.