Bennett, William Thomas (‘Bill’) (1877–1967), champion athlete and road bowler, was born 7 September 1877 at Killeady, Ballinhassig, Co. Cork, one of two sons and three daughters of William Bennett, farmer, from Killeady, and Eliza Bennett (née Hobbs), who was from a well known Clonakilty sporting family. He was educated in the local national school, and his remarkable sporting prowess, combining strength, agility, and accuracy, was evident from a young age. Emigrating to South Africa at the time of the Boer war, he joined the Cape Mounted Police at Port Elizabeth, where he won four Cape Colony championships in one day, in the long jump, high jump, shot and hurdles. Returning to Ireland, he initially made his sporting mark nationally as an athlete, winning the running high jump under the auspices of the GAA in 1906 and the 16 lb (7.26 kg) shot put and the 56 lb (25.4 kg) over-the-bar titles in 1908. In 1913 he won the GAA long jump title. That same year he won the long jump at an international competition between Ireland and Scotland.
By this time he had also begun to make a name for himself in the sport of road bowling – then, as now, confined mainly to areas of Cork and Armagh – and became one of the best exponents of the game in the country. Prior to the establishment of Bol Chumann na hÉireann and the formalisation of the rules in 1954, road bowling was not organised on a formal basis and there was no truly national championship until 1963, long after his career was over; but ‘Bennett the Bowler’, as he was known, was generally regarded as the best player of his time, and the first great champion of the game. He is generally credited with five Irish bowling championships from 1909 in the more ad hoc period of the first four decades of the twentieth century. During that period he had many tussles with such players as Paddy Murphy from Blarney, ‘Buck’ McGrath, Timmy Delaney, and, later, his great rival ‘Red’ Crowley. A measure of his longevity is that he was honoured in 1999 by Bol Chumann na hÉireann with the title Supreme Bowler for the 1930s period, when he would have been in his fifties. Adding to his semi-legendary status is the widespread belief that he was the first man to loft a 28 oz (.79 kg) bowl over the 91 ft high (27.7 m) viaduct on the Cork-Bandon road. He was also a useful amateur boxer.
Despite being 13 st. 7 lb (85.3 kg) at his peak, he also excelled at sprinting and hurdling as well as the field sports, with the great sports journalist ‘Carbery’ (qv) (Patrick Denis Mehigan) describing him as unlucky to arrive on the athletics scene when international opportunities for Irish athletes were limited (Fifty years, 82). Hard-working and big-hearted, he always gave of his best, and was honoured with a place in the front rank of the march past on the opening day of the Tailteann games in 1924. A farmer in Ballinhassig, he enlisted in the South Irish Horse for seven years after his return from South Africa, and fought in the first world war. He retained a keen interest in sport right up to his death, in his ninetieth year, on 6 January 1967.
Bennett married (1911) Ethel Maude Quin from Firgrove, Innishannon, Co. Cork; they had two sons and four daughters. His children also made their mark in sport. A daughter, Elizabeth (‘Becky’) O'Mahoney, was a noted female athlete, regularly winning the ladies’ race at the Cork City sports. Both of his sons had distinguished sporting careers in their own right. George Bennett represented Ireland in amateur boxing and won athletics titles in the long jump, high jump, and 56 lb throwing event, as well as being a successful road bowler and trainer of local GAA teams. Osmond (‘Ossie’) Bennett (b. 1916) is best known as co-trainer of the Tipperary hurling team that won four All-Ireland titles in five years in the 1960s, and was masseur of the team for two other victories. A pioneer of massage and appropriate preparation techniques for GAA players, Ossie Bennett was involved in a total of twelve All-Ireland senior-title victories in hurling or football with four different counties as trainer or masseur.