Why the "Fighting Irish" have a history of Olympic boxing legends

Katie Taylor joins many other great Irish athletes this week

MICHAEL CARRUTH, Dublin
After failing to bring home a medal from the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Dublin-born Carruth achieved glory at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona when he won a gold medal for Ireland, the country’s first gold since its win in 1956 for track.

JOHN CALDWELL, Belfast
Born in Belfast in 1938, Caldwell became one of Ireland’s first boxers at the Olympics. At the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, he took home the bronze medal in the flyweight division.  Following the Olympics, Caldwell said, “it was the most successful set of Irish boxers ever to go to an Olympics as we won four bronze medals. But it was such an honour to be picked and I was so overjoyed to be representing Ireland on such a stage.”

FREDDIE GILROY, Belfast
Gilroy, born in 1936 Belfast, took home the bronze at the 1956 summer Olympics in Melbourne. Gilroy joined other Irish boxer John Caldwell is securing bronze at those games.

BARRY MCGUIGAN, Monaghan
McGuigan, a native of Clones in Monaghan, competed at the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow. McGuigan is nicknamed ‘The Clones Cyclone’ for his boxing abilities.

KENNY EGAN, Dublin
Egan, a native of Clondalkin, won a silver medal as a light heavyweight at the Beijing Games in 2008. During the London Olympic Games in 2012, Egan served as a boxing analyst for RTE. In June 2012, he carried the Olympic torch through a stretch in Dublin as it made its tour around Ireland and the UK.

To learn more about Ireland’s history of boxing at the Olympics, check out Breandan O Connaire, former President of the IABA, article here.
 

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Nster.com