Seán O’Neill represented Ireland in the men’s heavyweight coxless four at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, rowing as stroke alongside Jonno Devlin, Seán Casey and Cormac Folan and finishing 10th overall.

Born in Limerick and from Pallasgreen, Co. Limerick, O’Neill was a member of St Michael’s Rowing Club. He moved to New Zealand as a teenager and took up rowing there before returning to Ireland in 2006 to join coach Harald Jahrling’s heavyweight programme. He made rapid progress and took the stroke seat for Beijing in the final crew selection ahead of Alan Martin.

His Olympic career is one of the most unusual in Irish rowing history – after Beijing he returned to New Zealand and switched allegiance, going on to represent New Zealand in the men’s coxless four at the 2012 London Olympics, where he finished 11th – making him one of a small number of athletes to have competed for both Ireland and New Zealand at the Games. He subsequently settled in New Zealand and became a rowing coach, leading the Marlborough Girls’ College rowing programme from 2017 with considerable success.