Having been born in Dublin, Ireland, and having viewed a number of claimed to be ‘Irish’ sets, my longstanding desire was to own a genuine Irish set- known to collectors as Killarney sets. Acquiring one was no easy task, however, and I needed a fat purse to be successful. In this case the quality patience of ‘The Lyon’ paid off after years of waiting in the collecting wilderness to pounce. Received in great condition, this delightful set with a King height of 7.5 cms, base width 3cms, square size 5cms, is far preferable for visual inspection and play. Some sets that I have seen in the past look similar to a pair of Japanese Sumo wrestlers trying to use a telephone box as the pieces are too large for the squares, something I always keep in mind when choosing a suitable board. For the record this board is not a ‘Jaques style’ one, and never will be, since I am sick to my back teeth of that selling wording- the only proven Irish set of chessmen that I have seen is owned by CCI member Mick Deasey, apart from Killarney sets of course! In order to reduce the cost of such a set I needed to compromise, and had in mind a treasured board that would do such a set justice and allow the pieces to breathe. With patience and care I managed to strike a bargain with Tim Millard of Antiquechessshop.com, and this resulted in the purchase of a smaller than usual Killarney set without the original board. Yet this possible Arts & Crafts board with large size squares works a treat with the set. The board features handpainted emblems of shamrocks, a rose, a thistle and a crown which possibly represent the nations of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales (?), and there is an eagle stamp and numbers printed on the back. Such boards appear to be scarce, and I have only seen two from past Ebay sellers-both of which are now mine. Any information on these boards from would be warmly welcomed.
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