Ireland has a rich boxing culture, the sport is as popular as anywhere and although there ain't many gyms the few that are there are packed full of youngsters and the Irish have the potential to be the cuba of europe. good to see them doing well in the olympics, but why don't they produce more boxers?
I think Ireland does ok for itself at both amat and pro. When you consider the likes of Dunne, Macklin, Duddy, Lee, Rogan and a bunch of others who are either good domestic class or near European class. They may not have anyone currently good enough to challenge for a world title but they have decent strength in depth. America seems to have taken a huge likeing to Irish boxing at the moment so many Irish fighters are getting a good push stateside. I think Irish boxing is in a very healthy state and who knows they may get a break through world belt holder pretty soon.
A few problems, our national sport (GAA football) and football (soccer) are always going o be the big two sports, kids usually play either or! Not many kids learn boxing at a young age the facilities are poor, its unreal that we even have any reputation of any sort for producing quality boxers! Picture this kind of set up, Ireland is still the kind of country that if there is a good 16 year old in a certain gym that everyone will know about it and be looking at him at our national boxing championships. The boxing community is verymall in Ireland and we often have the situation where the same fighter fights the same opponent at the national championships final for a few years running Look at Egan who is a good fighter no doubt, but he hasn' lost against another Irish amateur in the National Championships in 9 YEARS! We only have 4 million people, god knows how small the boxing community is
Also throw in the fact that there was absolutely **** all scope for pro boxing here until Peters brought Dunne back from America. There is the possibility that we might see a boom in interest over the next few years if we can land a couple of golds and then see Lee/Dunne/Duddy take any kind of world title (joe punter here won't give a **** if it's not considered by boxing affeciandos as a 'proper' title).
