Ireland was one of twenty-eight nations to send a delegation to compete at the

1968 Summer Paralympics The 1968 Summer Paralympics ( he, המשחקים הפאראלימפיים בקיץ 1968) were the third Paralympic Games to be held. Organised under the guidance of the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (ISMGF), they were known as th ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

from November 4 to 13, 1968. The team finished nineteenth in the

medal table The Olympic medal table is a method of sorting the medal placements of countries in the modern-day Olympics and Paralympics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not officially recognize a ranking of participating countries at the Olympic ...

and won a total of nine medals; four silver and five bronze. Seven Irish athletes competed at the Games, five men and two women. Rosaleen Gallagher won a medal in four different sports;

archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competiti ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

and

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

Disability classifications

The Paralympics groups athletes' disabilities into one of five disability categories;

amputation Amputation is the removal of a limb by trauma, medical illness, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on indi ...

, the condition may be congenital or sustained through injury or illness;

cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sensa ...

;

wheelchair A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, problems related to old age, or disability. These can include spinal cord injuries ( paraplegia, hemiplegia, and quadriplegia), cerebr ...

athletes, there is often overlap between this and other categories;

visual impairment Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...

, including

blindness Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...

; Les autres, any physical disability that does not fall strictly under one of the other categories, for example

dwarfism Dwarfism is a condition wherein an organism is exceptionally small, and mostly occurs in the animal kingdom. In humans, it is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than , regardless of sex; the average adult height among people with dw ...

multiple sclerosis Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...

. Each

Paralympic sport The Paralympic sports comprise all the sports contested in the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games. As of 2020, the Summer Paralympics included 22 sports and 539 medal events, and the Winter Paralympics include 5 sports and disciplines and about ...

then has its own classifications, dependent on the specific physical demands of competition. Events are given a code, made of numbers and letters, describing the type of event and classification of the athletes competing.

Archery

One Irish archer competed at the Games. Rosaleen Gallagher took part in the St. Nicholas round cervical for women. One of only two athletes in the event she won a silver medal after being beaten by Ruth Brooks of Great Britain.

Dartchery

The only dartchery event at the Games was the mixed pairs event which took a knockout format. The Irish pair of Kerrigan and Hughes was beaten by Spaniards Llorens and Lorente in the first round.

Snooker

One

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

event was contested at the Games, the men's open event. Jimmy Gibson entered for Ireland. After wins over Keaton of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

and

Aroldo Ruschioni Aroldo Ruschioni (born 1932) was an Italian paralympic multi-sport athlete who won six medals at the Summer Paralympics. See also * Italy at the 1960 Summer Paralympics * Italy at the 1968 Summer Paralympics Italy competed at the 1968 Summer ...

of Italy, Gibson faced Britain's

Michael Shelton Michael Shelton is a British sportsman who competed at the Summer Paralympic Games five times between 1960 and 1976 in snooker and other sports. He won six Paralympic medals, four gold, a silver and a bronze. He also won gold at the 1974 Commo ...

in the final. Shelton defeated Gibson to take gold and the Irishman won the silver medal.

Swimming

Three swimmers competed for Ireland in Tel Aviv. Kerrigan took part in the men's class 2 complete

breaststroke Breaststroke is a swimming style in which the swimmer is on their chest and the torso does not rotate. It is the most popular recreational style due to the swimmer's head being out of the water a large portion of the time, and that it can be s ...

and backstroke but did not advance to either final. Ireland's two swimmers in the women's 25 m backstroke class 1 incomplete each won a medal; White won the silver and Rosaleen Gallagher the bronze behind Ingrams of Great Britain who won in a world record time.

Table tennis

Five players entered

singles events and pairs in both the women's A2 doubles and men's C doubles. Jimmy Gibson added a bronze medal in the men's C singles to the silver he won in

. In the women's A2 singles Ireland won two medals, silver for White and bronze for Rosaleen Gallagher. White and Gallagher were Ireland's entry in the women's A2 doubles. Four pairs entered the event; the Irish pair lost their first match, against Great Britain, by a score of 2–1 but still won a bronze medal.

Notes

References

{{NPCin1968SummerParalympics Nations at the 1968 Summer Paralympics

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Januar ...

Paralympics The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaired ...