O'Kelly de Galway

I just recieved a gift: Assess your chess fast, (Batsford, in pretty good nick, descriptive notation)

Anybody worked through this, what should I expect? At first glance it seems pretty complicated.

Nope. Assess your chess fast, in 11 minutes, 43 seconds.

? ....I lost

I've been a fan of O'Kelly since many years ago when I used to play 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 a6 as black, and I found out that it was named after him. A very strong correspondence player, and draws against Fischer with both black and white!

Luc Winants is Belgian.  Vladimir Chuchelov, Alexandre Dgebuadze, Andrija Fuderer and Vadim Malakhatko are all currently living in Belgium I believe.  Mikhail Gurevich lived there for many years.  George Koltanowski was born in Belgium, and Akiba Rubinstein died there.

Just wanted to make sure that Belgian chess gets its due.   "Only" sounded so lonely.

O'Kelly de Galway doesn't sound very Belgian....

If you ever go accross the sea to Belgium.......

He was apparently the descendant of Finnigan O'Galway and Seamus O'Kelly, two of the legendary founders of the Belgian nation.

I can't help but think of waffles right now.

 Exactly what I was thinking!

Not forgetting:

My ancestry is sort of a mirror of O'Kelly's (which obviously is Irish at some time not known to me). My family name came from Flemish-Norman settlers in the 12th century who got to Ireland via Wales, their descendents remaining until my parents headed back across the Irish sea. Here's the home they left for Ireland in the 12th century, "Roch Castle" in Wales, after which the rook was named (ha ha, I made up the bit about the rook... I think ...?).

Yeah, that's cool. We should organize a chess weekend there for members.

Last I heard it was one of the few castles in the UK which functions as a hotel, so rooperi's suggestion is not entirely impossible.  Regrettably, I have no special rights myself there after over 800 years.

[Just realised my earlier message may have been ambiguous. The castle was the home of my 12th century ancestors, not my parents. I've edited it for clarity. Looking around the net, there seem to be some dispute about the dates, with the castle said to have been built in the 13th century and the settling in Ireland in the 14th century, but I am sure the history book I found this stuff in years ago placed these both earlier. ]

Looks a bit like an ancient ruin...