Desmond Joseph O'Brien (22 May 1919 — 26 December 2005) was an Irish

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

international. O'Brien, born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

and educated at Belvedere College, was a back-row forward. After winning two Leinster Senior Cup titles with

Old Belvedere Old Belvedere R.F.C. is a senior Irish rugby union club based on Anglesea Road in Ballsbridge, Dublin, Ireland. Old Belvedere was originally founded in 1918–19 by former pupils of Belvedere College. Old Belvedere enters senior men's teams in th ...

, his job with Guinness brought him to London in the 1940s, during which time played for

Wasps A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...

and

London Irish London Irish RFC is a professional rugby union club which competes in the Premiership, the top division of English rugby union. The club has also competed in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, the European Champions Cup and European Challenge Cup. While ...

, captaining the latter. By the early 1950s, O'Brien worked in Wales and had two seasons with

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

. A

Leinster Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of ...

representative player, O'Brien was capped 20 times for

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. Debuting as a 28-year old in 1948, he played three of four Tests in that year's

Five Nations Championship The Six Nations Championship (known as the Guinness Six Nations for sponsorship reasons) is an annual international men's rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The current champions ar ...

, with Ireland achieving the grand slam. He captained Ireland against the touring Springboks in 1951, for the 1952 Five Nations and on the 1952 tour of South America. O'Brien was team manager on the 1966 British Lions tour. Since the 1960s, O'Brien lived in the Edinburgh area and held executive roles in the brewery industry. He was General Manager of Guinness Scotland and later a Director at Harp Lager.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:OBrien, Des 1919 births 2005 deaths Irish rugby union players Ireland international rugby union players Rugby union players from Dublin (city) Rugby union number eights Old Belvedere R.F.C. players Wasps RFC players London Irish players Cardiff RFC players Irish expatriates in Scotland Irish business executives People educated at Belvedere College Leinster Rugby players

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