History of Irish Poker
History of the Irish Open | Past Winners | Irish Open 2006
The Irish and history. Now there’s a story. Long memories and short tempers. Ambivalence and passion. Tumult and triumph. And tales. Always the tales. Stories, yarns, craic, legends, myths. The oral tradition is strong and in poker, well, there’s lots of time to talk.
Here’s a story. Twenty-one years ago, 36 men and women gathered in a small room above a bookmaker’s office in a working class area of inner city Dublin. They were there to play poker.
Liam Flood had been there before. Each year for the last five years in fact. He was a bookie, a card player, a dapper gent.
His friend, Terry Rogers, was there. Terry started the Irish Open after seeing the World Series of Poker on a trip to Las Vegas in the late 1970s. Terry and Liam had been competitors in bookmaking but now were friends.
It was Good Friday. The rest of Ireland went about its business. Women mostly prepared for church. Men mostly wondered where they might find a public house that would admit them.
And so it was to be. Every Good Friday for 21 years thereafter. Liam would sit down with friends, old and new, and play cards. Terry passed on. But his legend and legacy didn’t.
This is a snapshot of that legend. That legacy. A story worth telling. The story of the Irish Open.
» Photographs of the 1984 and 1985 Irish Open
» Artifacts, esoterica and reportage