Kellie Harrington back training with Irish boxing team but gives definitive answer on her future

The next small stool Kellie Harrington sits on in a public arena will be a drum stool. The little seat placed in the corner of the ring between rounds at fights is definitely a thing of the past.

And while the boxing chatterati may talk about the 35 year-old Portland Row-raised Dubliner making a comeback in either the pro-ranks or Olympics action, they have got it wrong, badly wrong. Yesterday she spoke about her dreams of playing with U2.

"I'm back training with the Irish team but it's hilarious because then once you tell someone you're back training with the Irish team everyone is going 'Kellie's going pro' or 'Kellie's doing the next Olympics," she says of doing some sparring and some mentoring.

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"Kellie has absolutely no desire to go professional and you won't see Kellie at the next Olympics," she stressed

"I've achieved so much and I've given 20 years to boxing and the last 8/10 years have been mentally very, very hard.

"Like, it's my job and the work is hard. It's draining, it's demanding, I've done 20 years of it and it's probably one of the most amazing jobs, because of the moments and while you are training for it, it's great.

"I mean, you can't wait to get to championships, you're in the championship for your week-and-a-half and thinking 'I can't wait 'til this is over'.

Irish boxer Kellie Harrington in relaxed form in the Olympic Village in Paris

"And that's the way it is, you're constantly putting pressure on yourself and wishing it away and as soon as it's over wishing it back again."

The immediate future is about her day job at St Vincent's hospital, meeting friends and getting out and about in her own Dublin north inner-city community.

"What I will say is that I think if you are someone from a community, a disadvantaged community, and you are doing well for yourself in life," says Harrington who was honoured as a Nollaig na mBan Festival 2025 award winner this week. The event celebrates the women of Dublin's North Inner City with winners of all ages fêted.

"I don't care who you are, what you are, or what it is that you do, I do think you need to repay it back. These young people in these areas are the future."

Sometimes heartbreak and difficulties are placed in your path to test you, to teach resilience, to reward those who don't simply give in to easily.

As the double-Olympic champion explains, some of the best things in life come after you have jumped a hurdle - and there was that first time she ever climbed in to a ring and that life-lesson it taught remains to this day.

The journey from energy-filled teenager looking to take up boxing, through European and World Championships golds and double-Olympic gold at Tokyo 2021 and Paris 2024 had been eventful.

Accepting her Nollaig na mBan Festival 2025 award from Cllr. Nial Ring and Catriona Crowe is Maeve Foreman, who founded the multi award-winning Mud Island Community Garden.
(Image: Paul Reardon Photography)

A trip, she admits, that was just as much defined by two defeats as well.

The first of those came in her first-ever contest, against Cavan girl Caroline O'Shea, while the second came in her first major final defeat, against Yang Wenlu at the 2016 World Championships.

"I'd say I was there at the boxing club for a while and I knew what they were thinking, 'what's the best way to see if she really wants it' or 'what's the best way to get rid of her', and it is to 'put her in the ring and let her have a taste of what it is like'.

"So it was three months in and there was a Dublin versus Cavan match and they were going down on the bus to Cavan, they had got me a fight with a girl who had been boxing three years.

"I'm not joking, my legs were all bandy and my nerves were gone and I was hopping around the ring and my chin was up in the air.

"Then, I hit her early and (demonstrates by holding her hands out) I was like 'sorry, sorry...' and as I'm saying 'sorry, sorry' she must have hit me about four or five times straight down the centre.

"And then for the rest of the fight all I was thinking about was not getting hit so I just kept moving around the ring and she eventually caught me and I was stopped with about 10 seconds left in the least round."

It is '10-seconds' that Harrington has never forgotten.

"I was totally destroyed afterwards, my ego was done because I didn't get through it. If i had got through it and lost then it would have better.

"I cried all the way on the bus and the secretary of the boxing club who was driving the bus was 'Well love I suppose that's it now, we won't see ya back down at the club...'

"And I sez 'Ah no, I am gonna be back and I am going to beat her the next time...'

"So bring it forward a year and the Cavan boxing club is coming up to Dublin and they have this same girl coming up and I am fighting her again and my nerves were absolutely gone.

"I'd a lot to live up to because I'd said I was going to beat here so I had to beat her, not get stopped.

"Now I didn't beat her well but I beat her, I did enough and that's the way I've always boxed but a win is a win and I was delighted that I was able to get that back."

The lesson was now self-evident.

"That was the type of moment, where you lose, where it doesn't happen for you the first time it was like 'I am gonna go, try it again and see what happens and thankfully the outcome was that I did win.

"But I was able to sit back and think about my head being up in the air the last time and that I got stopped 10 seconds before the last round finished.

"Here I am now holding my own with this girl who was Irish champion and this is what happens when you have a goal set in your mind and your work hard - this is the outcome.

"It was kinda penny-drop moment for me that working hard will possibly get you what you want but it will definitely help you get closer to what you want.

What Harrington would come to question following the second of the two defeats that were so influential in shaping her career, was 'ambition'.

"I was in a club since I was 15 and I found friends there and they kept telling me how good I was and I never believed them.

Cathy, Lisa and Audrey Walker representing their late mother Kathleen who was being honoured at Dublin's Nollaig na mBan Festival 2025 as a beloved community helper and dedicated home care worker.
(Image: Paul Reardon Photography)

"I had a lot of Irish titles at that point but I never believed in myself, I never had the confidence to back it up. Like, I'd been away a few times boxing for Ireland in those year and I don't think I ever won an international fight.

"You can have all the talent in the world but if you haven't the confidence to back that up."

Around 2016 Harrington was asking herself: "I said 'do you know what I am boxing for year, I'm trying to hold down two jobs and this is hard so I have to make a choice here, I am absolutely going to give it everything. Hopefully it pays off, it happens.

"So I was picked to go to the 2016 World Championships and we had a new coach over the Irish team - we went and I got a silver medal.

"So I went from not winning any international fights to winning a silver and me confidence was growing with each fight."

But the fight with Yang Wenlu had taught Harrington a valuable lesson about herself.

"The person i was fighting in that 64kg final was from China and she beat me on a close decision, it was very very close.

"The minute the fight ended I had this horrible feeling in my stomach that I could have done more but I didn't - I had 'settled' for a silver medal because I'd never had an international medal in my life.

"I was thinking this is great, a medal, only realised when I got out of the ring what had happened and I was devastated - that wasn't going to happen ever again and I went back to the World Championships two later and brought the gold medal home."

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