75 boxers from 17 counties will compete for coveted Elite titles when the 2026 National Elite Championships begins on Friday at the home of Irish Boxing.
Among the competitors are double Olympic Champion Kellie Harrington, Paris Olympians Daina Moorehouse, Jenny Lehane, Michaela Walsh, Jude Gallagher, Dean Clancy and Jack Marley – alongside Olympian and 2025 World champ Aoife O’Rourke, Paris Olympian and 2025 World bronze medalist Grainne Walsh, and 2025 World bronze medalist, Patsy Joyce.
Competing boxers are from clubs in counties Antrim (11), Cork (2), Down (2), Dublin (23), Galway (7), Kildare (3), Leitrim (2), Louth (1), Mayo (3), Meath (2), Offaly (2), Roscommon (2), Tyrone (1), Waterford (4), Westmeath (5), Wexford (1), Wicklow (1). There are two Elite champions-by-walkover: Emma Keating of Paulstown BC, Kilkenny at 80kg and Cliona D’Arcy of Tobar Pheadair BC, Galway at 80+kg
In action on Friday’s opening night are Olympian Jude Gallagher of Two Castles Olympic BC Tyrone, 2024 European Champion Shannon Sweeney of St. Anne’s BC Mayo,
The Elite Championships, Ireland’s premier amateur boxing tournament, was first hosted in 1922 at the Abbey Theatre Dublin after an earlier All-Ireland event in 1920, eventually finding a permanent home at the purpose-built National Stadium in 1939. Double Olympian and multiple Commonwealth Games medalist, Michaela Walsh of Holy Family GG Belfast, holds the record for winning the most Elite titles, having won her 13th at the 2025 National Elite Championships.