{"id":140233,"date":"2025-09-16T02:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T02:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/140233\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T02:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T02:49:09","slug":"huge-honour-irelands-boxing-medalists-return-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/140233\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Huge honour’ – Ireland’s boxing medalists return home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newly-crowned world boxing champion Aoife O’Rourke has returned home with her gold medal.<\/p>\n

Bronze medallists Gr\u00e1inne Walsh and Patsy Joyce were also among the 17 squad members at Dublin Airport this evening.<\/p>\n

Family, friends and supporters welcomed them home with flags and banners.<\/p>\n

Ireland finished 7th out of 66 countries in the medals table at the World Boxing Championships in Liverpool.<\/p>\n

With her gold medal around her neck, Aoife O’Rourke, who is from Co Roscommon, said: “I’m delighted. It’s an amazing achievement and I’m just so grateful that I’m getting to put my name alongside the other world champions.<\/p>\n

“It’s a huge honour and I’m delighted to come home with a gold medal”.<\/p>\n

The Castlerea native enjoyed a comprehensive victory<\/a> winning all three rounds of her 75kg division final yesterday.<\/p>\n

It is the second world champion medal for the O’Rourke family after her sister Lisa won at light middleweight in Istanbul three years ago.<\/p>\n

“I had big, big boots to fill after Lisa achieved hers back in 2022. I’m only delighted to be adding my name to the list as well, Aoife said.<\/p>\n

She said that she “100% believed” in her abilities and the achievement is a credit to the hard work put in by her coaches and team.<\/p>\n

Aoife said that she had a good run at the championships, adding: “Everyone on the team is capable of achieving this and more”.<\/p>\n

\"Boxer
\nBoxer Patsy Joyce with his brother Christy after returning home from the World Boxing Championships<\/p>\n

Patsy Joyce was met by his nine-year-old brother Christy who had been eagerly waiting for Team Ireland to return home.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old arrived home with his bronze medal and a black eye, saying: “It was worth the black eye”.<\/p>\n

“It was my first senior major tournament. It was good. I showed them who the boss was. I didn’t get the gold but I tried,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Christy
\nChristy Joyce waiting for his brother Patsy to return home<\/p>\n

Gr\u00e1inne Walsh said that she was grateful to be wearing a bronze medal.<\/p>\n

“It’s been such an amazing experience. I just wanted to enjoy the whole thing, and I really did that, and I have to credit our coaches and our teammates and stuff, because everyone just was so positive.<\/p>\n

“I think when you’re in a positive environment, everyone flourishes,” she said.<\/p>\n

On Ireland’s 7th place finish at the championships, Gr\u00e1inne said: “When you think about it, for our small, little nation like they don’t call it the Fighting Irish for nothing”.<\/p>\n

\"Tia
\nTia and Tom Mackey Coulahan, who’s father Jon Mackey is Ireland’s Performance Director<\/p>\n

Among those in the arrivals hall were five-year-old Tia and six-year-old Tom Mackey Coulahan.<\/p>\n

The siblings had been on the flight home with Team Ireland having attended the championships to support their dad, Performance Director Jon Mackey.<\/p>\n

They proudly carried a boxing glove that squad members had signed for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newly-crowned world boxing champion Aoife O’Rourke has returned home with her gold medal. Bronze medallists Gr\u00e1inne Walsh and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-140233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}