Ireland debut "an incredible moment" for Newbridge boxer Saoirse Donnelly
Saoirse Donnelly lands a strike on Italian opponent, Melissa Cavaliere during the U17 European Championship Quarter-Finals in Montenegro.
16-year-old Saoirse Donnelly is home from her trip to Montenegro, where the Newbridge native was one of 18 boxers who represented Ireland at the U17 European Championships.
Competing in the 54kg weight class, Donnelly made her Irish debut in a Last-16 bout, beating her Croatian counterpart, Ema Halajko, via unanimous decision. “It was a very good fight,” Donnelly told The Kildare Nationalist.
“The first round I won unanimously; second round, I let it get into a bit of a scrappy fight and then she won that on a 3-2. So, then the last round, I knew I had to come back and work hard to get the win.”
The Irish team had arrived in Montenegro in plenty of time to prepare for the bouts. “We arrived on the Thursday evening. And then we were making sure all the weights were okay, everything was okay. We did a bit of training, and we walked around Montenegro - it's a beautiful country – just settling in, you know,” Donnelly said.
The Kildare boxer said she was “surprisingly calm” the day of her first fight, but conceded that she “was a little bit nervous because it was the first time wearing the Irish vest.”
Describing the feeling when the judges’ scorecards were read aloud and she knew she had won, Donnelly said, “it was just surreal”, adding, “then you hear everyone in the crowd shouting. It's just an incredible moment.”
Despite her young age, the Newbridge boxer has had tremendous success in her career, capturing four Leinster titles and two national titles. But there was to be no fairytale in Montenegro, as Donnelly came up short in the quarter-finals, losing a split decision to Italian opponent, Melissa Cavaliere.
“She was tricky,” Donnelly said. “She’s a European silver medallist – so, it was a very, very tough fight. First round, I lost on a split decision; I thought I boxed well. And then second round, I think I just let it slip a bit. Then the third round, I thought I'd come back, but I didn't really persuade the judges.”
Donnelly will spend the winter training with her team at the Setanta Boxing Academy, Newbridge, in preparation for the Golden Girls Championship to be held in Sweden in the new year. The Golden Girls is the largest female boxing tournament in the world, attracting over 500 boxers for last year’s competition, where Donnelly had a significant victory over the reigning English champion before coming up just short in the final.
Setanta, led by Head Coach Michael Lambe, will be sending eight boxers to Sweden in 2027, further adding to the Newbridge’s club’s proud history in the tournament. Donnelly says she is looking forward to the opportunity to once again train, travel and compete alongside her fellow Setanta boxers.
“They're literally all like family to me because we all train together. So, we're all supporting each other over there. They're a lovely bunch of girls. We'll just be training side by side, helping each other along,” she said.
Donnelly has spent the last nine years honing her craft at Setanta, first entering the doors at just seven years old and praising how much the club has nurtured her over that time.
“It's just incredible,” she said. “The time and effort that all the coaches put in is just unmatched. They really do put everything into it and everything into us boxers. They know what we want and we know what we want. So, we're all just helping each other.”
