Mayfield boxer Donna McCarthy delivers two titles to land Echo Women in Sport award

Donna McCarthy, the dynamic Mayfield barn-storming boxer has been selected as the February winner of the much acclaimed ‘Echo Women in Sport Award’.

This is a great honour for a young athlete and she will now go forward as one of 12 monthly winners to automatically contest the prestigious Echo Women in Sport over-all Annual Winner.

Donna was nominated for this award amidst very stiff opposition from all other sporting codes in Cork. 

Her success in winning the monthly award is a tribute to her sporting achievements and her dedication and commitment to her chosen sport of boxing.

To date, she has been identified as a revelation in the sport but equally acknowledged as one who is grounded on a rock of reality. 

Fully understanding the sacrifices she must make to achieve her sporting goals, she is content to put the hard work in both consistently and unconditionally. McCarthy has enjoyed a great career since she began boxing as an eight-year-old. 

She is a proud product of the outstanding Mayfield Boxing Club. 

This is a club who have made serious sporting headlines in recent years. Around the time McCarthy ed the club, Mayfield BC were bashing in sporting glory having won the 2016-'17 Cork Club of the Year. 

This achievement marked the club out as trailblazers as they were the first winners of the Victory Aston Cup, which is acknowledged as the silver symbol of supreme achievement by boxing officials in the southern capital.

Donna McCarthy is a pleasant, modest, and unassuming young lady, she is steeped in local, provincial and national success. 

To date, she is the proud holder of three All-Ireland boxing titles, four Munster championship medals and a winner of the four Cork county titles.

Recently, in the month of February, she claimed the Cork and Munster championship crowns and is now once again in hot pursuit of further All-Ireland glory. 

If successful, she will become a Grand Slam winner for the fourth time. 

The Grand Slam in Irish amateur boxing is when you can in the same season sport the trinity of medals around your neck. 

In a recent photograph by Doug Minihane published on the Mayfield page in The Echo, McCarthy is looking respondent as she proudly displays her elusive trinity of medals from last year. Donna is widely acclaimed as a boxer with tremendous future potential. 

She is growing in stature all the time. She also experienced international boxing having represented Ireland at the European Junior Championships in Turkey. 

McCarthy is fully committed to stay in the sport. Her tough weekly training schedule sees her train with Mayfield BC three nights a week, and then she has a couple of spars in other clubs, and puts in a couple of 8km runs weekly.

This is the acid test of self-motivation and she can be regularly seen pounding the roads in hail rain or snow around the suburbs of Mayfield, Ballyvolane and Blackpool.

ELITE

The Echo Women in Sport February Winner hopes to go all the way in women's boxing.  Her focus is on becoming an elite Irish champion and progressing to the Irish boxing high-performance unit based in Abbotstown.

Recently, Donna had a four two-minute round spar with Cork’s current double elite champion Linda Desmond of the Rylane Boxing Club.  Linda is a previous Echo Women in Sport Monthly Award Winner on two occasions. 

She was also the Echo Supreme Athlete of the Year in Women in Sport in 2023 and presented with her cherished accolade at a function in the Metropole Hotel in February 2024.

Following a very tough and competitive spar with Donna, Linda said: “Our spar had all the intensity of a championship contest, it was ding-dong, she is a great boxer and will make a great champion if she continues at this rate."

The spar was intensely watched by Seanie Barrett. 

Barrett, a former Irish international boxer and double elite champion said: “Donna is a great competitor, she is a very fast accurate boxer who keeps coming forward, she is teak tough, and if she continues she should mature into a great prospect, and I am confident she will go the distance."

IDOL

McCarthy’s boxing idol is Katie Taylor. 

I love watching her fights, I am very interested in how she trains, and I think she has achieved everything in the sport of boxing, by winning an Olympic medal and becoming undisputed professional champion of the world."

Outside of boxing and as a career, Donna would like to train as a beautician. 

She has always been attracted to this industry and has expressed an interest in facial make-up, she believes this would provide an opportunity for her to express herself in creativity and hopes to pursue this ambition in the near future.

Another sport she would like to play is ladies football but the strict discipline of boxing does not provide ample opportunity for her right now.  Away from training, Donna likes to relax watching TV, she likes to holiday in Spain, and when out for a meal her favourite dish is salmon.

Donna McCarthy praised the great work of her coaches Brian Cronin, Garrett Fitzgerald and all the coaches at the Mayfield Boxing Club. 

“This is a great club, I have been with this club since I began boxing. There is a great atmosphere of community spirit in the club, and it is very well organised."

The President of the Cork County Boxing Board Michael O’Brien congratulated Donna on her recognition by The Echo of judges. 

“This is a great personal triumph for Donna and one, she richly deserves, but it is also a great occasion for the Mayfield Boxing Club, who are magnificent ambassadors for the sport, and a club who are consistently turning out champions in a very competitive sport,” O'Brien said.