
Joe Veselsky on his105th birthday in 2025
The only living member of the group which formed the Swathlng Club International in 1967; recently Joe Veselsky recognised Ireand’s oldest living male citizen.
Born in Trnava in 1918, a city located in western Slovakia, the very same month that the independence of Czechoslovakia was officially proclaimed, Joe was 20 years old when the country was invaded under the orders of Adolf Hitler. Both parents and brother were murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
“My father was the head doctor in a Tuberculosis hospital for children in the mountains, because of his position he thought he would be saved; he was transported”, reflected Veselsky. “I watched my mother and father being pushed into a cattle truck, the last words my mother said to me were “change your religion”, my mother was 56 years old, my father 58 years of age.”
Later when World War Two was over, Veselsky received news about how his brother had died.
Welcomed in Ireland, Joe became the non-playing captain of the Irish team; later the President of the Irish Table Tennis Association, eventually being elected Life President.
Furthermore, in 2008, he was made a Commander of the Slovak Order of the White Double Cross for outstanding achievement in sport and for his contribution to the development and maintenance of diplomatic relations between Slovakia and Ireland.
Not content with these accolades, Joe returned to university following his wife’s death, becoming Trinity College Dublin’s oldest student. In 2016, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree.