Myles McDonagh made history at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games as the first Irish boxer to compete at two Olympic Games, having previously competed at the Antwerp 1920 Games – though that earlier appearance pre-dates the separate Irish Olympic representation established for Paris.

A flyweight from the Falls Road in Belfast, McDonagh was eliminated in his opening bout at Paris. At the Amsterdam 1928 Games he again demonstrated great skill and tenacity, defeating his opponent in the first series before being stopped in his second-series bout by the sixteen-year-old Dutch boxer Ben Bril, who had refused to compete at the 1936 Berlin Games and survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II.