Most importantly for us, it was the year the 1956 Summer Olympics opened on 22 November in Melbourne, Australia.

Ireland sent a team of 12 to the 1956 Olympics: seven boxers, one wrestler, one yachtsman and three athletes. They produced a haul of one gold, one silver and three bronze medals for Ireland . . . a phenomenal success rate for one of the smallest teams of the 67 nations taking part.

The Olympic gold medal was won by Ronnie Delany, in what I feel has been rightly described as "the single greatest Irish sporting achievement." The 1,500m is one of the two glamour races of the Games, the other being the 100m. To win the 1,500m was a phenomenal achievement.

To recognise the scale of Ronnie's achievement, we should reflect on the context of the 1956 Olympics, a sports environment very different to today's. For instance, only one national newspaper writer, Arthur McWeeney of the Irish Independent, covered the Olympics, although Smokey Joe Walsh of the Munster Express was also accredited, and was always annoyed when he was overlooked as one of the press corps.

Against such a background, it will come as no surprise to learn that coverage in Ireland of world track and field achievements was minimal. Few here would have been aware that, for five years, Ronnie was unbeaten on the boards across America, winning 32 successive mile races.

His years of achievement included setting the world record three times, and he became the seventh person in history to break the 4-minute mile.

In effect, Ronnie Delany was "chairman of the boards" long before Eamonn Coghlan, but his level of extraordinary success passed by most of the Irish public, because media coverage was then on a very different level to today. Only a few would have reckoned on Delany taking a gold . . . not excluding the Irish Olympic committee of the day. I remember Brendan O'Reilly, the Irish high-jump champion, telling me that he was originally chosen to go to Melbourne, but because of the OCI financial problems, missed out on the Olympic team on a split vote . . . a vote by an Olympic committee which, at that time, included no representatives of track and field.

Brendan told me Ronnie just made Melbourne on a split vote, in spite of his extraordinary level of success on the American circuit. It took the OCI a long time to decide on the team, and Ronnie arrived in Melbourne only three days before the start of the Olympics . . . hardly the ideal preparation.

Coming up to the 1,500m, Ronnie was fancied by some, but he was not the favourite by any means. John Landy of Australia was the overwhelming favourite, and Brian Hewson of Britain, Australia's Merv Lincoln, and Murray Halberg of New Zealand were also highly fancied.

Ronnie was confident however, and he wrote subsequently in his autobiography that he felt the three British finalists looked as if they were going to the gallows.

But all finalists were tense, before 120,000 passionate Australian fans, and you could cut the tension with a knife. This, unusually in the longer races, led to a false start.

I heard the race on radio in Cork, but I remember there was no sense of civic celebration . . . my talking about the result was the first most people knew about it. I always loved track and field, and though I had not yet met Ronnie, I walked tall for a time as an Irishman basking in the reflected glory of his wonderful achievement.

According to Ronnie, winning the 1,500m was the happiest day of his life. "To be Olympic champion is to be a living part of history, " he said. "One can break the world records, as I have, and they are forgotten. But when you win an Olympic title, you live on as part of the sport."

It took some days, but, increasingly, what Ronnie had achieved in Melbourne sank into the Irish psyche, and there was a huge sense of anticipation about his return to Ireland.

Ronnie Delany's win came at a bleak time in Ireland's history, a time of massive unemployment and emigration that was not to change for another decade. There were many elements in the spirit of change that was to bring about a new, more confident, more adventurous Ireland. I have no doubt Ronnie's win in Melbourne was one of those elements. It proved we could compete against the best in the world, and win!

The Sunday Times, in a reflection on his gold medal, got the mood right, saying, "At home, in a nation leaking people and gripped by economic depression, this was a splash of colour to illuminate a grey period in history. And the people had a hero, one that would last the ages."

Ronnie Delany was a hero then, and my hero, and he's a hero still today. And on the 50th anniversary of the Melbourne Olympics last year, it was entirely appropriate that, as a nation, we honoured again a man who is not just a great champion, but a terrific, genuine person and a great ambassador for Ireland.