Richard J. Mecredy

Richard James Patrick Mecredy (1861–1924) was an Irish bicycle racer, journalist and writer. He is credited as being the inventor of Cycle polo, the rules of which he drew up in 1891.

Life Mecredy was born in Ballinasloe, County Galway, the son of Rev. James Mecredy, the Church of Ireland rector of Inveran, Spiddal, County Galway. He was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin (where he had been an Irish champion tricycle racer) in 1884 and after a short spell as a teacher was apprenticed as a solicitor with his uncle, Thomas Tighe Mecredy, of Dublin. However, his interest in cycling and his growing reputation as a cycle racer led to his becoming Dublin correspondent of the Tralee publisher J. G. Hodgins's Irish Cyclist and Athlete in September 1885. Hodgins appointed him editor in November the same year. Mecredy bought the paper from Hodgins with his brother Alexander in 1886 and moved its office to Dublin. William Percy French contributed regularly to the magazine from 1886 until French's death in 1920. Meready also set up The Jarvey weekly comic paper in January 1889 with William Percy French as its editor.

In the 1886 Irish National Cycling Championships in Track Racing he won the 1 mile, 2-mile and 4-mile events. In the 1880s and 1890s he won a total of nine Irish championships.

He had his greatest success at the National Cyclists' Union meeting in London in 1890. He had already given up competitive cycling when Dunlop introduced the pneumatic tyre in 1888, and he saw the benefit that this would bring to cycling, so he agreed to accompany the Irish team of the brothers du Cros, F. F. McCabe and P. Piggott to London. It was a daring decision for him to compete, but it was justified by his winning all four championships and finishing the season with an unbeaten record. James Joyce used the 1903 race as the setting for his short story “After the Race”, in his collection Dubliners.

In early October 1912 Carl Stearns Clancy, along with his biking partner, Walter Rendell Storey, arrived in Dublin to commence his circumnavigation of the world by motor-cycle. Mecredy gave them road maps and helped them plot their route in Ireland. Clancy continued his circumnavigation of the globe until August 1913, during which he rode 18,000 miles in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America.

Mecredy was a vegetarian and authored a book Health's Highway.

He died while in a sanatorium in Dumfries, Scotland, after a long illness - he suffered from tuberculosis. He is buried in Dumfries, Scotland.

Family He married Catherine Anne Hopkins, from Oldcastle, County Meath, in 1887. They had six children: Raymond, Ralph, Eric, Myrtle, Ivy and May.

His son, Dr. Ralph Mecredy, was also a cyclist and competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm. He survived the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915.

Publications The Art and Pastime of Cycling. By R. J. Mecredy and G. Stoney. 1895 Mecredy's Road Book of Ireland The Motor Book Cyclist & pedestrian guide to the neighbourhood of Dublin. 1891 De Dion Bouton Motor Carriages, Their Mechanism and how to Drive Them. 1910 Health's Highway. 1910 The Irish Cyclist from 1886 The Jarvey 1889-1891