Hogan was born as Jim Cregan in Croom, County Limerick, Ireland in May 1933.[5] In his youth, he had some success in cross-country running in Ireland.[1] However, he initially retired from the sport at the age of 26, and moved to England in 1960.[1] Once in England, he took up running again, and changed his surname by deed poll from Cregan to Hogan, with the goal of competing in running events in England.[1] While running in England, his performances were noticed by selectors for the Irish Olympic team, who picked him to compete at the 1964 Summer Olympics.[1]
Hogan competed at two Olympic Games.[4] At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Hogan represented Ireland in the men's 10,000 metres and the men's marathon,[6] but did not finish either race.[7][8] Despite not finishing in the marathon, Hogan kept pace with the eventual winner, Abebe Bikila, until he was forced to withdraw from the race due to dehydration.[9]
Hogan felt both disillusioned and discriminated against for being an Irish athlete living in England, so he switched to compete for Great Britain.[1] He won the marathon title at the 1966 European Championships.[2] Two years later, at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Hogan represented Great Britain in the men's 10,000 metres, where he finished in 26th place.[10]
After setting multiple World and European distance records in athletics,[1][11] he returned to live in County Limerick to train horses.[12] He died there in January 2015, at the age of 81.[13] A biography of his life, titled "The Irishman who ran for England" was published before he died.[14]
