SWEENEY, Tony: The Sweeney Guide to the Irish Turf from 1501-2001. Owners, Trainers, Jockeys, Sires, Records, Great Races, Flat & Jumping, Places of Sport, Past & Present, The Dish Spiced with Anecdotes, Facts, Fancies. Profusely illustrated with coloured plates.

Dublin: De Búrca, 2002. Folio. pp. 648. Bound in full buckram gilt. Apart from racing enthusiasts, this is a most valuable work for students of local history as it includes extensive county by county records of race courses and stud farms, with hitherto unfindable details.

The late Dr. Tony Sweeney, Anglo-Irish racing journalist and commentator, was Irish correspondent of the Daily Mirror for 42 years. He shared RTE television commentary with Michael and Tony O’Hehir over a period of thirty-five years. Dr. Sweeney was also a form analyst with the Irish Times, and author of two previous books Irish Stuart Silver, a Catalogue Raisonné (1995) and Ireland and the Printed Word (1997), for which he was awarded a Doctorate of Literature by the National University of Ireland.

His late wife Annie, a former French stage and screen ballet dancer whose film credits included L’Homme au Parapluie Vert starring Fernanded and Chanteur de Mexico with Luis Mariano. For over a quarter of a century, in her role as turf statistician, she supplied the Irish Times with course facts and figures.

Francis Hyland a former stockbroker turned bookmaker is currently chairman of the Irish National Bookmakers Association. A passionate racing researcher, he co-authored with Guy St. John Williams, histories of the ‘Irish Derby’ and the ‘Jameson Irish Grand National’.
Published by De Burca Rare Books.