Sport: Sweeps' End

In the summer of 1930, two Irishmen of the Old Sod—a bookmaker and a politician—put their heads together and figured out a scheme. They would run a lottery on an English horse race, ask the Irish Free State to sanction it, give a fat chunk of the proceeds to impoverished Irish hospitals. R. J. Duggan, the bookmaker, had experience: he had run sweepstakes before. Joseph McGrath, the politician, had a flock of friends: he had been Minister of Labor under President Griffith. With the Bail's consent, Duggan & McGrath formed the Irish Hospitals'...