Alexander could well be described as the greatest Irish player of all time. In his time he won against many strong players, including Botvinnik, Euwe and Bronstein. He wrote to me in 1957 saying: "I do think of myself as an Irishman, not an Englishman, in spite of my long time here".

I first met him in Amsterdam 1954. He had a hand in cracking the German secret codes during the war and was not allowed to go to the Olympiad in Moscow 1956 for security reasons. We had many friendly arguments during the 1957 Dublin Zonal where there was great local interest in his performance, though officially he was representing England. He insisted that the policy of trying to revive the Irish language was a mistake.