The Irish Champion Peter Maher

About the Book

Peter Maher, a Galway born, and Dublin reared fighter, laid a strong claim on sport’s greatest prize, The Heavyweight Championship of the world, in the 1890’s. For over ten years he was a top contender and his popularity was such that he was arguably the most famous sportsman in America at the turn of the Twentieth century. This popularity stemmed from his prodigious punching power, good looks and affable, good-natured and easy-going manner.

He mixed with everybody from Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt and William McKinley to Wild West icons Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Judge Roy Bean and a multitude in between. Yet today he is virtually unknown except to the anoraks of the boxing world. This book attempts to address this situation. It traces his career from the amateur days in Dublin, deals with all his big fights in the United States and the famous contest for the World Title against Bob Fitzsimmons in Mexico. It charts his downward spiral until his death in 1940 in Baltimore. The book also contains a records section where the career records of some forty of his opponents are published, some for the first time and most at least revised with corrections and additions. The book also contains many photographs from the period and attempts by the use of contemporaneous newspaper reports to accurately portray the man and his times.

About the Author

Matt Donnellon was born in 1957, lives in Ireland and is employed a storemanager in the motor trade. He is married to Mary Steede, from Kilbannon, the birthplace of Peter Maher, and they have six children. The three girls are Grainne, Niamh and Tara while the boys, Shane, Niall and Brian all were boxers and all three were Connaught (West Ireland) champions.

Matt is an Irish Amature Boxing Association (IABA) judge and also coach with his local Kilmaine Boxing Club, County Mayo. He is also a long time member of the International Boxing Research Organization, IBRO.