'He outclassed the best men of his day': Recalling the legacy of Cork’s ‘Ring Napoleon’ Jack McAuliffe 

Napoleon, war-master, was a terror to his foes, 

A general of generals, as everybody knows;And Jack McAuliffe, lightweight king, who many battles won,Was tagged by his admirers: “The Ring Napoleon!”

Nat Fleischer, Ring Magazine

One of a handful of world boxing champions to retire undefeated, and the only lightweight in history to do so, Cork’s Jack McAuliffe was one of the best fighters in the latter years of the 19th century.

Before the more compassionate Queensberry Rules were drafted in 1867 to revolutionise the sport, brutal and bloody bouts could grind on for more than 70 rounds and last hours on end.

McAuliffe, who fought in both eras, legitimately laid claim to the world title after defeating the three top English lightweights: Sam Collier, Jack Hyams, and Harry Gilmore.

When Gilmore was in his 80s, he recalled: “To a greater degree than any other lightweight champion I have known, Jack McAuliffe outclassed the best men of his day.

“He was a natural fighter, and time and practice made him number one. On top of that, he was a lightning-fast thinker and as fine a general as ever performed in the ring. That’s a combination hard to beat and I never saw it equalled, in my experience.”

Five-foot-five-inches and weighing 135lbs, McAuliffe was praised by boxing chroniclers for his “silky, cat-quick movements around the ring, and possessing good footwork with a sharp left jab and knockout power in his right hand”.

Jack was born to Cornelius McAuliffe and Jane Bailey, their second son, at Christchurch Lane, Cork city, on March 24, 1866.

The following year, Cornelius took the emigrant ship to America and enlisted in the US Army.

He managed to save enough money to bring over his family in 1871.

They settled in an Irish community in Bangor, Maine, but never forgot their roots.

“We’re proud Cork folk first and last,” they would say.

Jack attended public school in Bangor, where one of his teachers was known to beat his students.

On one occasion, after class, Jack was subjected to this, but retaliated and went after him with his fists, resulting in injuries on both parties.

A truce was called and they became good friends.

In 1882, the McAuliffe family moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and set up home in the 14th Ward, a predominantly Irish district.

His father took on a job as a cooper at Western Union, with Jack working as an apprentice.

It was here he met another Irish lad who would become a famous boxer and middleweight champion of the world, Jack Dempsey, not to be confused with the heavyweight champion of the same name many years later.

The two became good friends and Dempsey, born in Co Kildare, encouraged McAuliffe to take up boxing.

They were known to train and drink together.

During this time with Dempsey, McAuliffe learned his boxing and his self-developed skills and stamina would prove invaluable later.

Like most boxers, McAuliffe started in the amateur ranks and won a tournament in New York in 1882 advertised as “the amateur featherweight championship of America”.

He was victorious in several other matches, before turning professional in July 1883, and was managed by Billy Madden, a former mentor of the great heavyweight champion John L Sullivan, whose parents were immigrants from Kerry.

McAuliffe was hailed as the American champion, but there was still the English title-holder, Jem Carney.

In a fight that was somehow lacking in glamour, they met in a huge barn at Revere, Massachusetts, in November 1887, in a fight under the new Queensberry Rules, when skin-tight gloves were used for the first time.

Spectators had been advised to meet in small groups at a nearby hotel, where they were carefully screened for several hours.

Later, they were escorted by lantern light to the site.

They brought along a Salvation Army group practising hymns nearby, in the hope that their presence would help to throw the police off the scent.

Each boxer had to put up a sidestake of $2,500.

Before the fight began, the big wooden doors were bolted from the inside and the antagonists squared off in the eerie glow of several oil lamps.

Carney, who had won the English title under the old London Prize-Ring Rules, was more used to the rough and tumble of bare-knuckle fighting and was the stronger puncher.

The Irishman, however, had the better of the exchanges for the first 10 rounds because of his more skillful boxing, but Carney scored well at close range.

The fight dragged on until the 74th round, when some rowdy spectators rushed into the ring and pulled up the ring posts, shouting ‘the police are on the way’.

Referee Frank Stephenson had no alternative but to end the contest and declare it a draw, with the purse monies equally divided.

Both sides maintained they were robbed of outright victory, but, overall, it seemed a fair decision.

The fight had lasted three hours.

Twenty-seven years later, the two fighters re-enacted their epic match in an exhibition in London.

McAuliffe successfully defended his world title five times, before retiring as undefeated champion in 1896, at the age of 30, and with an impressive record of 30 wins, five draws, and no losses.

In his retirement, he managed to earn a good living by sparring in exhibition bouts and reciting monologues on the stage, mainly humorous boxing stories.

A dedicated humanitarian, he opened soup kitchens and lodging houses for the destitute and homeless around his home in New York City.

Jack developed an interest in the turf and became a racehorse owner and bookmaker, and was a familiar figure at race meetings in his bowler hat, fashionable suit, white spats and jauntily swinging cane.

Sadly, the good times ran out, and years of high living and gambling left him with little to fall back on, but he enjoyed reasonably good health until the last few years of his life, when he developed throat cancer.

He died at his home in Forest Hills, New York, on November 5, 1937, aged 71, and is buried in Albany Rural Cemetery, Menands, New York State.

In 1995, McAuliffe was one of the first to be inducted in to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in New York.

This story originally appeared in the 2024 Holly Bough.