The Holmes Wilson Cup, the biggest single event in the CBAI’s calendar, took place over the weekend in the Mount Wolseley Hotel in Tullow, with a near-capacity turnout of 123 teams. Our thanks to our new sponsors, Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland, for their sponsorship of this event, and to Cantor’s representative, Suzie Berkery (pictured in the prize-giving ceremony below along with CBAI National President John Phelan), who did a great job over the weekend, and also managed to pick up a prize with her team.
The prizewinners were:
- Winners: Tom Hanlon, Mark Moran, Adam Mesbur, Nick FitzGibbon
- Runners-Up: Anna Onishuk, Karel De Raeymaeker, Kelan O’Connor, Conor Boland
- 3rd Place: Dan McIntosh, Peter Goodman, Tommy Garvey, Kevin Castner
- 4th Place: Martin Brady, David Dunne, Paul Delaney, Tomás Roche
- 5th Place: Marcin Rudzinski, Wojciech Gorczyca, Matthew O’Farrell, Ronan McMaugh
- 6th Place: Mairead Haugh, Justin Corfield, Roisin De Jong, Claudiu Dima
- 7th Place: Jim Doyle, Sean Connor, David O’Brien, Bill O’Hanlon
- Best Women’s Team: Joan Kenny, Jeannie Fitzgerald, Siobhan Part, Teresa Rigney
- Best Men’s Team: Norbert Van Woerkom, Hans Klarenbeek, Dennis Kruis, Tom Heeres
- Best Mixed Team: Andrea Knox, Martin Garvey, Liz Commins, David Stevenson
- Best Senior Team: Michael McAuliffe, Sandra Newell, Dolores Gilliland, Peter Stewart
- Best National Masters: Mary Kelly-Rogers, Francis Gibbons, Frank Davey, Put Duff
- Best Regional Masters: Eimir Beirne, Pam Harrington, Nicola Power, Ann O’Kane
- Best Area Masters: John Coulter, Paul Clinch, Vicky Pigot, Simon Burrell
- Best Intermediates: Suzie Berkery, Michelle Berkery, Julie Anderson, Deirdre Lemass
- Session Prizes: Anna Carr, Margaret Farren, Pat McDaid, Zrinka Kokot; Kath Stynes, Debbie Sandford, John Cox, Alex Hannon; Denis Mortell, Hugh MacDermott, Sean Maguire, Conor Moore
Holmes Wilson Winners 2026
Holmes Wilson Runners Up 2026
The winning team has quite the pedigree in this competition. The same foursome won the event in 2024, and it represents the seventh victory for Tom and the fourth for Mark. But Adam and Nick go back a lot longer, and their track record is without parallel. This was Nick’s fifteenth victory, including a six-in-a-row streak in the late 1970s/early 1980’s, while Adam has sixteen victories overall, and his his streak of consecutive wins is also one longer than Nick’s.
Our thanks to the TD crew of Diarmuid Reddan, Huey Daly, Bernard Higgins, John Phelan, John Crimmins, Brian Lawlor, and Eamon Galligan, plus our two local caddies, for managing the most complex event of the calendar without a hitch.
While in the Mount Wolseley, we also celebrated the induction of a new player to the most exclusive club in Irish bridge – the Grand Master rank for players who have earned more than 1,000 National Points. Hilary (Dowling-Long) McDonagh becomes the 37th member of that exclusive group. Hilary learned bridge during her time in UCD, and was part of a group many of whom went on to become serious bridge players. One of her very first partners was the late Colm O’Driscoll, who sadly passed away so young recently.
It’s fair to say that Hilary showed great flair for the game very quickly, as she progressed from Novice to Master within the space of a year! On a visit to the Bankers, she met Helen Carroll, and soon developed a partnership with Helen’s son John, with whom she won several Novice and Intermediate events. As with many things, there was an element of serendipity involved – her first game with John was as a stand-in because his partner did not show up. Hilary also played junior international bridge at this point, creating an affinity for junior bridge that was to be a feature of her later career. She is very grateful to the expert players, particularly Pat Walshe and Rory Boland, who gave so freely of their time and advice when she was an aspiring player.
Once she established herself at the top level, Hilary has had a very consistent track record of achievement, even though at some stages both family and career (including researching for a PhD as part of her job as Lecturer in Psychology at Sligo Institute of Further Education & Training) took precedence. She has won all the major titles – the Spiro twice, the Coen, the Holmes Wilson, the Jackson twice, and the McMenamin five times, including a hat-trick between 1996 and 1998 with Rebecca O’Keeffe, Helen Carroll, and Jill Kulchycky. Other regular partners include Gilda Pender, Ann-Marie Horan, and Thomas MacCormac in mixed events. She also has the distinction of having won the Interprovincial Championship with two provinces – first Leinster, and then Connacht after she moved west when she got married.
Hilary was capped at junior level, and also served as junior NPC, including for Ireland’s first ever Junior Camrose team in Dublin in 1999, and has played in three World Championships, six European Championships, and eight Lady Milnes, including one for the CBAI team. She also played with her good friend Peter Stewart in the inaugural British Isles Trophy (online mixed home internationals) last year, and was delighted to help him win his first “cap”.
She has also been a tireless worker for bridge, right since the start of her bridge life. Her first job was dealing boards for the CBAI back in the days before the Templeogue office, when her place of work was a room in Paul Porteous’s house. She subsequently worked with the CBAI on the creation of a transition year schools’ programme, which (remarkably in these days when it is so hard to get into schools) saw bridge taught in 10% of all Irish schools with transition year programmes. She was also part of the very first set of bridge teachers accredited by the CBAI and the CDVEC in 1997, under an initiative created by Seamus Dowling and Máire O’Keeffe. Subsequently, with support from the late Sean O Lubaigh, Hilary set up the Irish Bridge Institute and established herself as an outstanding and very popular teacher. She also organised the “Clash of the Bridge Masters” in the RDS, an invitational tournament which attracted a world-class field and created great publicity for bridge in Ireland. The word is that Hilary plans to return more seriously to teaching in the next few years, which will be very welcome.
Within bridge, Hilary is well-known for her bubbly, enthusiastic, and friendly (though always competitive) demeanour. Aside from her various honours, she also has the distinction of winning the title “Miss Bridge 2002” at the Women’s European Championships in Salsomaggiore in that year – apparently, she still has the sash. There is a bit of a story behind the award. This was the first championships to use online line-ups and system cards, a fact to which the Irish Women’s team was oblivious on arrival. When the technology proved beyond the capability of NPC Mary Trench, Hilary was elected to cajole the organisers into printing copies of the opponents’ system cards for every single round of the tournament. To this end, Hilary charmed the relevant organizer, a young Spanish TD named Juan in doing the needful. The voting was by paper ballot and none other than the Welsh legend Maggie Pierce reported afterwards that she had observed Juan enter Hilary’s name in the poll several times every day of the tournament, ensuring she got a very healthy vote … not that she didn’t fully deserve the title, of course! (We were also struck by how incongruous this award seems, just twenty-odd years later; we can only imagine the reaction if the CBAI had run a poll to select Miss Holmes Wilson 2026 last weekend.)
We’re sure you’ll join us in congratulating Hilary on this fantastic achievement, which takes a lot of hard work and dedication, as well as a lot of talent.
Hilary receiving her Grand Master salver from CBAI President John Phelan