Flanagan, John J. (1873–1938), athlete, was born 9 January 1873 at Kilbreedy, Co. Limerick, son of Michael Flanagan of Kilbreedy. Having played inter-provincial hurling for Munster and won Irish and British titles throwing the hammer, a discipline of which his father had been a leading exponent in the 1860s, he moved to America (1896) and joined the New York police department. In that year he became the first man to throw the hammer over 150 ft (45.72 m). He went on to head the world rankings till 1910, won seven successive American hammer titles as well as two British hammer titles, and broke the world record for the hammer in Clonmel (1895) when throwing over 145 ft (44.2 m). He continually extended that record, finally throwing 184 ft 4 in (56.18 m) at the Clann na Gael games in New Haven, Connecticut (1909), for his seventeenth world record. Achieving this feat made him the oldest man to break a world track and field record. A competent shot-putter, he won five American titles at the 56-lb (25.4 kg) weight.
The Olympic games proved to be his greatest stage. He won the hammer event in 1900 when he defeated the American Truxton Hare with a throw of 168 ft 1 in. (51.23 m), and repeated that feat at the 1904 games at St Louis. By the time of the 1908 games in London he was a 35-year-old veteran and was not expected to win the hammer event. Also in the field were fellow Irishmen Matt McGrath (who had beaten him in the 1907 American championships) and Con Walsh, the Canadian champion. He trailed till the very last throw of the competition, when he produced an effort of 170 ft 4.5 in (51.93 m) to push McGrath and Walsh into the minor medals. He became the first man to win three successive Olympic golds in a track and field event, a record unequalled till 1964. He also won a silver medal for the 36-lb (16.33 kg) shot-put in the 1904 Olympics, defeating the Canadian Etienne Desmarteau, and was fourth in the discus.
He left the police force in 1911 and returned to farm in Limerick. His last successes saw him win the 1911 and 1912 Irish hammer championships. A gentle, charming, and modest man, whose innovative pivoting technique brought a new dimension to his sport, he died in Kilbreedy in June 1938.