Ahead of the Lions’ first test against Australia on Saturday, we look at the impact of John Fihelly Down Under
BY SAMUEL KINGSTON
HAVE you heard about the West Cork man who played rugby union for Australia? Not only did that, he also was a founding father of rugby league in Queensland, and went on to have a significant political career at state level. This man is Timoleague-born John Fihelly.
While West Cork has connections with previous Lions players – George Beamish and William Joseph Roche – Fihelly is a strong local link to Australia.
Fihelly was just one year old when his family boarded the Duke of Westminster in 1883. His father Cornelius was a customs officer. His mother Anne was a McCarthy. Unlike many Irish in this period, the family moved of their own free will as part of an assisted emigration programme. The family settled in Brisbane, Queensland.
A promising pupil, Fihelly attended St Joseph’s College, Gregorys Terrace which was a Christian Brothers school. The Irish Christian Brothers had a network of schools in the Brisbane area. Rugby was played at these schools and in 1906 a club called Brothers was formed to cater for former pupils who wished to play rugby.
Irish surnames dominated the team sheet and Fihelly would join them in 1906. He had only started playing rugby in 1905 and quickly progressed to become a member of the Queensland state team. In 1907 he represented both Queensland and Australia against New Zealand. Joining him on the Australian team was his Brothers team-mate Peter Flanagan. who was born in Dublin, while the Australian team manager was James McMahon whose father was from Clare. Fihelly was on the losing side in both games. The result in Fihelly’s one game for Australia was 14-5 for the All Blacks.
Australia, at this time, wore maroon and light blue hoops to represent New South Wales and Queensland. The green and gold colours we know today were first worn in 1928 and the Wallaby nickname was adopted in 1908 on Australia’s first tour of the northern hemisphere, captained by Herbert ‘Paddy’ Moran.
John Fihelly in 1920.
Fihelly’s involvement with rugby union was drawing to an end. In 1907 the game of rugby league was gaining popularity down south in Sydney. Among the leaders there were John James Giltinan, whose grandfather was from Cork city, and Arthur Hennessy, whose grandfather was a convict from Tipperary. Fihelly became a convert to this new game.
In 1908, he was a founding member of the Queensland Rugby Football Association. Another founder was Irish-born Sine Boland. Fihelly would represent both Queensland and Australia in rugby league. He was assistant manager of the Australian Kangaroos tour to Britain in 1908 which helped create an interest in rugby league back home in Australia. He was later President of the Queensland Amateur Rugby League from 1914 to 1916.
Rugby league is a working class game and Fihelly was a proud working class man. He began work at 14 as a telegram messenger in the post office, later progressing to a clerk job in the Department of Trade and Customs. He was a supporter of the Labor party and contributed articles to the Worker newspaper from 1906 onwards. In 1912 he won a seat in the Queensland Legislative Assembly.
The Labour Party, under TJ Ryan, won the 1915 election and Fihelly became a Minister without Portfolio and Assistant Minister for Justice. In 1918 he was made Secretary for Railways, introducing positive reforms. Fihelly was well regarded in political circles and was given this role in spite of his outspoken support for the Easter Rising and his anti-conscription views that made him quite unpopular at the time.
When Ryan moved to federal politics in 1919, Fihelly became deputy leader of the Queensland Labour party under Ted Theodore. Such was his ability that he added the role of State Treasurer to his workload. At the same time his personal behaviour was beginning to embarrass the government and he moved to London to become Queensland’s representative there. After a disagreement with Theodore, Fihelly resigned and his political days were over. In 1926 he fractured his skull and one of Queensland's great servants went into a steady decline. He died in 1945 and received a state funeral.
His legacy is best remembered in Rugby League’s State of Origin series which is played between Queensland and North South Wales each year. The series is referred to as Australian sports greatest rivalry. Without Fihelly and his colleagues establishing rugby league in Queensland, the series would never have occurred. Queensland claimed the 2025 series with a surprise win in Sydney last week.
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Samuel Kingston is a sports historian from Clonakilty. His ebook, the Irish World of Sport is available to purchase online. For more information on the Irish World of Sport please visit the Instagram page or Facebook page.
