Game finally over after 50 years for silver chess trophy
IN THE polishing room at the top of the house of Weirs on Grafton Street, a spring clean uncovered a conundrum.

A small silver trophy had been left for engraving but never picked up – after 50 years awaiting inscription – and it was time to do something.

“It’s always been there in the polishing room,” said Allan Kilpatrick of Weir Sons jewellers. “We were doing a bit of spring cleaning, it was cleaned up . . . It needed to find its rightful owner.”

With a rook in the centre and knights on either side, the trophy, made by Alwright Marshall silversmiths, was the Irish Times Game of the Year chess trophy, it turns out.

The trophy was awarded to the best Irish chess player or a chess player in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s. Picking from the best “half-dozen or so games” played that year, Irish Times chess correspondent JJ Walsh would forward the scores from the games for independent adjudication.

“Some competitors still appear to be unaware of what constitutes an ideal game of the year entry,” Walsh noted in an article in 1962.

“The overall play is what really matters and a careful note is taken of the loser’s display, for the strength of his resistance in the game can enhance the achievement of the winner.”

Inscribed on the back of the trophy were the names of the five title winners from 1958 to 1962, the final recipient one ‘V Maher’. The Irish Times archive reveals it was a Dr Vincent Maher, but where to find him?

“We believe you won the Irish Times [chess] Game of Year in 1962, Dr Maher?” we said, having tracked the retired GP to Stockport, England.

Born in Dublin in 1929 and educated at Newbridge College, where he learned chess at 13, within six months Vincent Maher could beat everyone at school. He emigrated to England in 1953 and in 1954 he played his first chess Olympiad in Amsterdam. Irish champion in 1955, he won the I rish Times prize in 1961 and in 1962.

“Yes, I’ve got the trophy,” says Dr Maher from the home he shares with his wife Edith. Aged 82, he continues to play, although not competitively.

So who owns the trophy in the polishing room at Weirs?

Walsh explains: “Whoever would win the title would get to keep the [perpetual] trophy for a year; then they would get a replica to keep for good. I don’t know what happened to the trophy when the competition more or less ran out of steam.”

Checkmate.

On the first of November we opened our Montblanc Boutique on the ground floor. The cabinets were made to the highest spec by Montblanc in Germany and are fitted with LED lights reducing energy consumption and our CO2 footprint. The Boutique will showcase the largest range of Montblanc Pens and Accessories in Ireland. Pride of place in the new display is the new limited edition Mark Twain writers edition Pen.

The collection comprises outstanding pieces of jewellery that are sported on the necks, wrists and hands of celebrities including Madonna, Cheryl Cole and the Beckhams and are made up of a variety of styles, metals and gems.

The collection is on show on our lower ground floor in our Grafton street store.

We are proudly showcasing a Vintage Gentlemens Tudor Chronautic automatic wrist watch. Ref: 79390P. The funtions on this timepiece are hours, minutes, sweep seconds, date and chronograph and comes fitted with a black calf leather stitched strap, with a steel deployment clasp embossed with the Tudor logo. It is water resistant to 100 meters or 300 feet. The perfect gift for the watch enthusiast in your life!

The original cases were all kept and relocated to the first floor as they have been in the company since 1906 and have helped to enhance the selling space on the first floor.