The late Dermot Dalton was a fantastic visionary for snooker and billiards in Ireland. Dermot gave over 60 years of his life to cue sports and made an huge impact in developing snooker in particular during his time. He was instrumental in setting up the Dublin Leagues where at one time there was 14 divisions with 14 teams of 10 players in each along with helping to develop a league for ladies in the early 1980’s that ran for a number of years.
In 1981 Dermot started the Stars of the Future tournaments in the U12, 13, 14, 15, 16 & 17 age groups with the sponsorship of Brenfer Jewellers in Capel Street Dublin. Stars Academy Ireland continues his work today through the schools. He also ran the Dublin junior leagues for 25 years to add to his achievements while giving more of his time to developing and promoting endless events on the senior tour around Ireland as the National Secretary of RIBSA at the time. Dermot also made great progress on the World and International stage in helping to secure and run two successful World Championships in 1974 and 1984.
His support and help towards female cue sports was fantastic and took time out of his very busy schedule to attain sponsorship of table time at Castle Billiards for ladies tournaments and encourage females to join RILSA and enjoy playing cue sports.
Dermot was elected President of RILSA in 1997 until he retired in 2003 due to ill health. Dermot’s support and help throughout his time with RILSA was appreciated and we will always remember his contribution to the sport and in particular his influence on female snooker, what a true gentleman he was. Thank you Dermot
