Click on the arrows to go through Thomas Gallagher's photos Jack McLaughlin and Stephen Friel were officially installed into the Donegal Boxing Hall of Fame on Saturday night. At the 2024 awards ceremony hosted by the County Donegal Boxing Board, Illies Golden Gloves’ Friel and Letterkenny boxing icon McLaughlin were inducted. It was a special night as the sweet scientists of the county gathered to celebrate a successful season that saw nine boxers win 11 Irish titles between them. They included Danny Duffy, the Raphoe Boxing Club ace who won an Irish Elite bantamweight title. Duffy also won the Irish senior title at his weight, those successes coming just a few short months after the tragic death of his mother and two other family members in a road traffic collision outside Strabane. Duffy bridged a 30-year gap to Danny Ryan, the previous Raphoe BC boxer to win an Irish Elite title. Illies Golden Gloves, one of the youngest but most successful clubs in Donegal, was named as Club of the Year. When Roisin Hegarty won a Girl 2 title, it was the 50th Irish title won by the Illies Golden Gloves in only 25 years. Hegarty went on to compete at the European Schoolgirls Championships in Bosnia & Herzegovina and was just one win from a medal, losing out to Varvara Parshikova from Russia in a quarter-final. Jack McLaughlin and Stephen Friel took the night’s final awards as they joined the illustrious Hall of Fame. From a legendary boxing family in the Cathedral Town, McLaughlin won six Irish titles, including at Schoolboy, Youth and Junior levels, and was beaten in an Ulster Elite final by the late, great Jim McCourt in a fight that was shown on the BBC in 1965. In roughly 500 fights – in a period of around 14 years – he had only 20 losses and remains one of the most formidable boxers ever developed in Donegal. Friel was no mean boxer either and won the boxing award at the 1982 Donegal Sports Star Awards. Friel made his name as one of the top coaches in the country and is an AIBA accredited three-star
Jack McLaughlin, Stephen Friel enter Hall of Fame as Donegal boxing toasts season
Illies Golden Gloves were named as the club of the year while Gary McCullagh of Raphoe Boxing Club took the coach of the year prize at the County Donegal Boxing Board awards, held at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Letterkenny
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