A 91-year-old Irish woman is appealing for help to find a football medal won by her father over 100 years ago.
Nancy Dempsey, from Dublin, lost her dad’s gold medal while on her way to work in either 1953 or 1954.
Nancy’s husband later made a replica of the medal, but it was stolen from her daughter’s home in Cheshire, England sometime in the late eighties or early nineties.
In a hand-written letter to RTÉ’s Ray D’Arcy Show – along with two little sketches of the front and back of the medal – Nancy said its loss “still bothers her over 60 years later”.
Her father won the medal in 1910 after finishing top of the 12th County League while playing for Dublin’s Portrane Asylum FC.
The medal was gold in colour and in the shape of a Celtic cross, with an inscription on its reverse side reading: “12th County League won by Portrane Asylum.”
“Dear Ray, this is a really long shot,” Nancy said in her letter. “The item I lost was a gold football medal which my father won in 1910 or thereabouts.”
Nancy wrote that her dad joined the team in 1906 before winning the medal four years later, explaining that “the team was made up of members of the staff of Portrane Asylum (now St Ita’s Mental Hospital)”.
"Many years later my father had this medal made into a broach for my mother and eventually this broach came to me.
Nancy's letter in full. Picture: Ray D'Arcy Show"Unfortunately I lost it sometime between 1953 and '54 while travelling to work from my home in Portrane to Thomas Street in Dublin.”
She added: "Considering the distance I had travelled, it could be anywhere."
Nancy's ballpoint went dry halfway through the letter and she apologised before replacing it and continuing her story.
"There is more to this story," she explained with her replacement pen.
"Knowing how attached and proud my father was of the medal, my boyfriend (later my husband) asked a jeweller friend of his to make a copy for me hoping that my father would not notice the difference.
"Eventually this copy was given to my daughter who lives in Cheshire, England. She kept it with all her jewellery which was subsequently stolen in a break in to her home in the late eighties or early nineties. So now even the replica is gone.”
The lost replica was made of a lighter gold and did not have the inscription on the back.
"It may be destroyed and I will never see it again but perhaps it is lying in someone's 'button box' and nobody knows where it came from. Who Knows?
"But I would love to see it again. It is worthless, but to me it is precious and for over 60 years it has been like grit under my eyelid.”
