{"id":479333,"date":"2026-03-16T22:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479333\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T22:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:53:13","slug":"death-mourned-of-derry-born-boxing-stalwart-tommy-stewart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479333\/","title":{"rendered":"Death mourned of Derry-born boxing stalwart Tommy Stewart"},"content":{"rendered":"

The boxing community in Derry and Donegal is in mourning following the death of Tommy Stewart, a noted coach with and a founding member of the Raphoe Boxing Club.<\/p>\n

Just five months after the death of his old friend Peter O\u2019Donnell, Stewart slipped to his eternal reward on Sunday at Melmount Manor in Strabane.<\/p>\n

Such was Stewart\u2019s contribution to the sport of boxing, he was given honorary life membership of the Ulster Boxing Council<\/a> in September, 2017. He was actively involved in the club until recent times.<\/p>\n

After helping to form the Raphoe Boxing Club in 1988, Stewart became the head coach and his star turn was Danny Ryan.<\/p>\n

Stewart manned the corner in 1993 when Ryan won the Irish Senior middleweight title at the National Stadium and he accompanied Ryan to the Commonwealth Games in Canada in 1994, when the middleweight lost out to Peter Wanyoike from Kenya.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The late\u00a0Tommy Stewart who passed away on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Stewart was in the corner when Ryan won a Celtic Games gold in Wales in 1990 and was also with him at the Canada Cup in 1992.<\/p>\n

Stewart started off as a boxer at the Billy Kelly Club in Derry in the late 1950s, while he also boxed with St Eugene\u2019s.<\/p>\n

After returning from a period in London, he set-up the Ventures II club in his native Strabane before joining forces with Brendan Ryan and Peter O\u2019Donnell in the autumn of 1988 to form the Raphoe BC.<\/p>\n

In the early years, the likes of Columba McBrearty, Gerard McGranaghan and Ryan returned to Raphoe with titles.<\/p>\n

“It started off with very little, but when we had success in the ring, we got more and more boxers through the doors,\u201d Stewart said after being honoured in 2017.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Local businesses back Mayor\u2019s high-octane \u2018Mayor-Rox\u2019 fundraiser<\/a><\/p>\n

Stewart had a term as President of the Donegal Boxing Board in 1990 and he also qualified as a sports tutor at the University of Limerick.<\/p>\n

Alongside Ryan, he accompanied many Irish teams over the years and when \u2018Danny Boy\u2019 turned pro, the pair continued their fabled and feared partnership.<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, Stewart\u2019s proudest moment came in 1993 when Ryan defeated Denis Galvin from Moate to win the Irish middleweight title. Stewart\u2019s emotional embrace of Ryan in the ring of the National Stadium remains one of the Raphoe BC\u2019s iconic moments.<\/p>\n

He was presented with an appreciation award at the 1994 Donegal Sports Star Awards while he accompanied the Irish Olympic squad to a training camp in the United States in 1995.<\/p>\n

Late of Knockavoe Crescent in Strabane and formerly of Dunmore Gardens in Derry, Tommy Stewart was the beloved husband of Patricia, father of Tracy, father-in-law of Kevin, grandfather of Ryan, Aaron, Gavin and the late baby Conor; brother of Cathleen, Stephen, Billy and the late John.<\/p>\n

His funeral will take place at St Mary\u2019s Church, Melmount at 1.15pm on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The boxing community in Derry and Donegal is in mourning following the death of Tommy Stewart, a noted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,170449,91064,170448,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-479333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-donegal-democrat","tag-raphoe","tag-raphoe-boxing-club","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479333","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=479333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}