James Alexander Porterfield Rynd
Encyclopedia
James Alexander Porterfield Rynd (1846–1917) was Dublin born chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 player and lawyer.

He was born on April 6, 1846 the son of Dublin solicitor James Goodlatte Rynd.

He won the Irish Chess Championship
Irish Chess Championship
The Irish Chess Championship is the national Championship of Ireland as run by the Irish Chess Union , the governing body for the sport and a member of FIDE since 1933. Below are the list of winners for the Men's and Women's titles. Note that women are currently admitted to the Men's tournament....

 competition in 1865 was run under the auspices of the Hibernia Chess Association a forerunner of the Irish Chess Union
Irish Chess Union
The Irish Chess Union , formed in 1912, is the governing body for chess in Ireland and a member of FIDE since 1933 and the European Chess Union. The ICU promotes Chess in the Republic of Ireland and maintains the chess rating for players in the Republic of Ireland, which are published three times a...

. This Tournament was run alongside an international chess tournament in Dublin.

Porterfield Rynd's birth date is often listed incorrectly as 1855 this has led some books to cast doubt on his claim to the Irish championship in 1865, such as The Guinness Book of Chess Records by Ken Whyld. But further articles and his obituaries discount this and state he was born in 1846 and died aged 71 in 1917.

He was accepted as the Irish Chess Champion until 1885 when a tournament was hosted by the Irish Chess Association to find an Irish Champion, Rynd did not play in this tournament. Rynd won the title again in 1892.
Porterfield Rynd held an LLB, in 1869 he entered the King's Inns
King's Inns
The Honorable Society of King's Inns , is the institution which controls the entry of barristers-at-law into the justice system of Ireland...

, Dublin, and was called to the Bar in 1874. On 7 September 1869 he married Anna Cranwill and on 9 October 1873 his first child was born: Kenneth Arly Rynd.

Easily the most colorful personage in the place was Porterfield Rynd, one of the ablest members of the Dublin bar--a man who, if he had been half as devoted to the drudgery of work as he was to the allurement of play, could easily have attained the highest honors in the judiciary.

He was a member of Clontarf
Clontarf, Dublin
Clontarf is a coastal suburb on the northside of Dublin, in Ireland. It is most famous for giving the name to the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, in which Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, defeated the Vikings of Dublin and their allies, the Irish of Leinster. This battle, which extended to districts...

 Tennis and Chess Club, and played many sports in his youth. Rynd was a member of Dublin Chess Club and played in the first ever Armstrong Cup, the oldest Irish league competition.

Porterfield Rynd was a Unionist
Unionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...

 and produced pamphlet of his thoughts on the subject in 1906 for the Irish Unionist Association.
A letter of Rynd's outlining support for the unionist cause are contained in letters to Bonar Law.

In the 1890s Porterfield Rynd edited a chess column which regularly appeared on the back page of the Saturday issue of Dublin's Evening Herald
Evening Herald
The Evening Herald is a mid-market tabloid evening newspaper published in Dublin, Ireland by Independent News & Media. It is published Monday-Saturday, and has three editions — City Edition, City Final Edition and National Edition...

. He was not burdened with modesty and the title Irish Champion appears beside his column.

He died in Dublin on the 17th of March 1917, his obituary was in the Irish Times of Monday 19 March 1917, RYND - March 17, 1917 JAMES ALEXANDER PORTERFIELD RYND, Barrister-at-Law, in his 71st year, and there was also an obituary in the Belfast Newsletter 22 March 1917.
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