Julia Cosgrove

Julia Cosgrove was born in Windfield Lower to Michael Cosgrove and Katie Laheen but sadly both had passed away before her Olympic heroics. The Connacht Tribune of reported that “Julia contracted polio when she was just three years of age, but following years in hospital and dedicated training and physiotherapy she would become one of the best wheelchair athletes in the world.”

Julia, who had previously won two gold medals, one silver and one bronze at the International Wheelchair Games at Stoke Mandeville, was selected to represent Ireland in the Wheelchair Olympics at Toronto where she competed in swimming, table tennis and seven track and field events. She had also competed in the Munich Games of 1972, just after completing her Leaving Certificate, and was employed in the Department of Welfare in the Customs House, Dublin. Julia’s sister, Helen Concannon, still lives locally as do many of her nieces, nephew and cousins.

Thankfully such preparations and participation are now much more appropriately catered for as again the Connacht Tribune reported in 1976 that “ A sad commentary on Irish participation in the Olympics is that while the able-bodied athletes, who returned empty-handed, got a Government subsidy, the wheelchair contestants, including western stars, Rosaleen Gallagher and Julia Cosgrove, who came back festooned with medals, got no State aid whatsoever. Their involvement was made possible by voluntary subscriptions.”