{{Short description|Irish rugby union player}} {{distinguish|Bert Solomon}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox rugby biography | name = Bethel Solomons | image = Bethel Solomons (1911).png | caption = Solomons in 1911 at the Rotunda Hospital | birth_name = Bethel Albert Herbert Solomons | birth_date = {{birth date|1885|2|27|df=y}} | birth_place = Dublin, Ireland | death_date = {{Death date and age|1965|09|11|1885|2|27|df=yes}} | death_place = Wandsworth, England | height = | weight = | position = Forward | amatyears1 = | amatteam1 = Dublin University | amatteam2 = Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital | amatteam3 = Wanderers | ru_amclubcaps = | ru_amclubpoints = | ru_amupdate = | repteam1 = Ireland | repyears1 = 1908–10 | repcaps1 = 10 | reppoints1 = 0 | ru_ntupdate = | coachteams1 = | coachyears1 = | ru_coachupdate = | occupation = Doctor | school = St. Andrews College, Dublin | university = Trinity College, Dublin }}
'''Bethel Albert Herbert Solomons''' (27 February 1885 – 11 September 1965),<ref>[http://www.espnscrum.com/ireland/rugby/player/1950.html Bethel Solomons player profile] Scrum.com</ref><ref name=Goodwin>Goodwin, p377</ref> born into a prominent Jewish family, was an Irish medical doctor and an international rugby player for Ireland and supporter of the 1916 Rising.
==Early life== Bethel Albert Herbert Solomons born in Dublin, Ireland, to a prominent Jewish family, one of the oldest continuous Jewish families in Ireland. The Solomons came over to Ireland from England in 1824. Bethel Solomons was the son of Maurice Solomons (1832–1922), an optician whose practice is mentioned in James Joyce's ''Ulysses.''{{#tag:ref|Maurice Solomons (1832–1922), an optician whose practice in 19 Nassau Street in Dublin is mentioned in James Joyce's ''Ulysses:'' "Striding past Finn's hotel Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell stared through a fierce eyeglass across the carriages at the head of Mr M. E. Solomons in the window of the Austro-Hungarian viceconsulate."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/ulys10.htm |title=ulys10.htm |publisher=Trentu.ca |date= |accessdate=12 January 2011 |archive-date=14 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514130212/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/ulys10.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>|group="nb"}} His grandmother Rosa Jacobs Solomons (1833–1926) was born in Hull in England.
Bethel's elder brother Edwin (1879–1964) was a stockbroker and prominent member of the Dublin Jewish community. His sister Estella Solomons (1882–1968) was a leading artist, and a member of Cumann na mBan during the 1916 rising; she married poet and publisher Seamus O'Sullivan.<ref>''Jews in Twentieth-century Ireland'', by Dermot Keogh</ref> His younger sister Sophie was a trained opera singer.
==Career== Solomons attended St. Andrews School in Dublin where he was very interested in rugby; He earned 10 international rugby caps for Ireland (1908–1910).<ref>Edmund van Esbeck: The Story of Irish Rugby, Stanly Paul, 1986. p. 253</ref>
He studied medicine in Trinity College, Dublin,<ref name=Goodwin/> became a medical doctor, and was Master of the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin from 1926 to 1933. This is mentioned in Finnegans Wake ''in my bethel of Solyman's I accouched my rotundaties''. He served as president of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) in the late 1940s and he practiced from No. 30 Lr. Baggot Street.
In a biography of Solomons he was described as "World famous obstetrician & gynaecologist, Rugby international, horseman, leader of Liberal Jewry & of Irish literary & artistic renaissance."<ref>''Bethal Solomons One Doctor in His Time'', by Christopher Johnson, Marion Pitman Books (London 1956)</ref>
==Personal life== He married Gertrude Levy in the liberal synagogue in London in 1916.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}} His second son, Dr Michael Solomons (1919–2007) was a distinguished gynaecologist, a pioneer of family planning in Ireland, and a veteran of the bitter and divisive 1983 constitutional amendment campaign.<ref>[http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/obituaries/2007/1201/1196375093872.html Dr. Michael Solomons, Obituary], ''Irish Times'', December 1, 2007</ref>
He was a friend of the founder of Sinn Féin and TD, Arthur Griffith.{{citation needed|date=March 2016}} Solomons contributed to the purchase of a house for Griffith. Solomons was a founding member and the first president of the Liberal Synagogue in Dublin.{{citation needed|date=March 2016}}
Solomon was an art collector, including the works of Jean Cooke.<ref name="Independent obit">{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jean-cooke-painter-of-wit-and-subtlety-890262.html|title=Jean Cooke: Painter of wit and subtlety|publisher=independent.co.uk|work=The Independent|date=11 August 2008|accessdate=5 January 2014}}</ref>
==See also== *List of select Jewish rugby union players
==Notes== {{Reflist|group="nb"}}
==References== * ''Encyclopedia Judaica'', Second Edition, volume 19, p146 * Goodwin, Terry ''The Complete Who's Who of International Rugby'' (Blandford Press, England, 1987, {{ISBN|0-7137-1838-2}}) {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Solomons, Bethel}} Category:1885 births Category:1965 deaths Category:Rugby union players from Dublin (city) Category:Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Category:Irish obstetricians Category:Irish rugby union players Category:Ireland international rugby union players Category:Jewish rugby union players Category:Dublin University Football Club players Category:Wanderers F.C. (rugby union) players Category:Rugby union forwards Category:Irish people of English-Jewish descent Category:Irish hospital administrators Category:Presidents of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland Category:Medical doctors from County Dublin Category:People educated at St Andrew's College, Dublin Category:20th-century Irish Jews Category:19th-century Irish Jews