Ireland’s queen of chess likes to keep life in check
Una O Boyle is our great white hope at this year’s Chess Olympiad which starts today in Germany, says John Meagher
Official Olympiad website: http://www.dresden2008.com/
Wednesday November 12 2008
‘I think you have to be slightly mad.” Una O Boyle is talking about what makes a really good chess player and she reckons eccentricity helps. “I think I’m a bit bonkers and there’s a part of my brain that just connects with chess, whatever that is.”
She should know. Today Una is competing for Ireland in the biennial Chess Olympiad, which is taking place in Dresden, Germany, until November 25.
“It’s good to represent your country at something,” she says. “And I’m glad to be representing women as well, because chess tends to be male dominated.”
Una, from Duleek, Co Meath, is 42 but looks at least 10 years younger. “I hate talking about my age,” she says, “because people are always judged on it.”
She has been playing chess since she was eight. “My father taught me how to play it and I was hooked,” she says. “It’s a brilliant exercise in sharpening your concentration.”
A product designer by trade, she has made her hobby pay dividends financially in recent years: she teaches chess through Irish in a plethora of Gaelscoileanna around Dublin and is about to publish an Irish-language book, Ficheall (the Gaelic word for chess), which explains the rules of chess to youngsters.
“The great thing about chess is that often the slower kids or the dyslexic ones can be much better at it than the so-called sharper ones,” she says. “And it’s great when they find an activity like this that challenges them in a way they haven’t been challenged before.”
Her own talent for chess had manifested itself by the time she was “11 or 12, and able to beat people much older”.
From then on, she started competing in chess events, although she admits that she could have excelled at an earlier age had she been more diligent.
“You need to be able to keep your concentration after two or three hours, but that’s when I start getting fidgety and want to do something else.”
Unlike many of the big names of chess, she says she is not obsessed with the game. “Obviously, there is a danger if you are obsessed with one thing that you won’t lead a balanced life. If you play chess for six hours a day, you’re not going to be as rounded as you probably should be.”
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