Former Irish swimming coach George Gibney in 1988. © INPHO/Billy Stickland
billy stickland
“He loved being photographed. I’d say he was delighted to see his picture in the paper,” said photographer Billy Stickland.
THERE ARE VERY few photographs of George Gibney out there.
Most of them date back to the 1980s, when he was a famous swimming coach in Ireland and had not yet fled the country after being charged with 27 sexual offences against children.
The photographs in this article have been used numerous times on articles about Gibney’s offending and, more recently, his conviction for sexually abusing four girls in the 1970s and 1980s. He was sentenced for this abuse today.
But his crimes were not publicly known when sports photographer Billy Stickland captured the images in Newpark Sports Centre, where Gibney had founded Trojan Swim Club, in 1988.
“It’s one of those things, you take a photograph like that and you don’t realise 30 years later or whatever it is, that it’s actually going to be all over the paper,” he told The Journal.
Stickland, who is regarded as one of Ireland’s best sports photographers, took the photographs as part of a profile on Gibney for the Sunday Tribune.
Under the headline ‘Making a Splash’, the article looked at Ireland’s hopes at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul under Gibney, who was the country’s Olympic swimming coach. He had already taken a team to Los Angeles in 1984, the year he took on the role.
“He was really powerful in Irish swimming,” Stickland said.
“He was getting the media attention that anyone who’s successful like him would get. The day I spent with him, he was incredibly confident about everything he said.”
Stickland recalls that Gibney was “very friendly to me” and “very helpful” during the photo session.
He loved being photographed. Some people are quite difficult to cajole, but no, he was up there really enjoying it. I’d say he was delighted to see his picture in the paper.
The photographer said at that point, there was “no inkling” that Gibney was abusing some of the young swimmers that he was coaching.
“It was only afterwards that people discovered there was something a lot more sinister going on. I think it’s just horrendous,” he said.
“It was a different society then. I think people got away with stuff that they would never get away with now, and obviously somebody like a swimming coach is in a very powerful position.”
The profile of Gibney was written by David Walsh, the sports journalist who spent 13 years investigating and exposing Lance Armstrong for using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his award-winning professional cycling career.
Stickland said he also photographed Armstrong for an article that Walsh wrote about him. “You don’t realise something is going to be a completely new story somewhere down the line.”
In April 1993, when Gibney appeared before Dún Laoghaire District Court charged with abusing young swimmers, the journalists present were not allowed to name him under the law. But the press photographers still wanted a picture of him after the hearing.
Stickland recalls them “rushing out there” when the story broke.
“He tried to make a quick escape out of the courthouse, out the back gate or something, and whoever was driving him smashed into a car. He just came straight out without looking, smashed into a car, so his car was left there stuck on the road,” he said.
“We all rushed over and he was in the back seat, covering himself with a blanket. It was really humiliating for him.”
Looking back on the now-infamous photographs he took of Gibney in 1988, Stickland remarked on the convicted paedophile’s eyewear.
“His glasses look,” he said with a pause, before continuing: “I don’t know. They were very trendy at the time.
“I’m delighted, in a way, that these photographs are used. There is something slightly sinister about him if you look at them, but I wouldn’t have thought in that frame at the time.”