Duffy's delight: 'Unbelievable feeling' as Danny Duffy crowned Elite champ

Just six months after the heart ripped from his family, Danny Duffy was crowned the Irish bantamweight champion on Saturday evening.

The Raphoe Boxing Club ace defeated Oisin Worsencroft at the National Stadium to land the title.

In late April, Duffy’s mother, Christine McKane, her brother Dan McKane and their aunt Julia McSorley were killed in a road traffic accident near Aughnacloy, County Tyrone. The three, all natives of Strabane, were traveling from from a family funeral in England when the minibus in which they were traveling collided with a lorry.

Duffy commendably returned to the ring and has bagged a clean sweep of titles since.

“I could cry, I’m still shocked,” an ecstatic and emotional Duffy told Donegal Live. “I just can’t believe it. I believed that I had it won after the third round, but you can never be sure. I am lost for words, to be honest. It’s just an unbelievable feeling.”

Duffy won the Irish Senior title having topped the charts in the Ulster Seniors before adding the Elite prize on Saturday.

It has been a rapid rise for the 22-year-old, who bridged a 30-year gap to the last Raphoe puncher to win an Elite title. Duffy goes now alongside Danny Ryan, who was the middleweight champ in 1993, in the Raphoe Boxing Club pantheon - and on the weekend the club is celebrating its 35th anniversary.

Duffy, out of the blue corner, was in control of a bout that never really caught fire. Duffy had beaten Worsencroft in the senior final with that bout stopped in the second round following a clash of heads.

Their Elite final joust went the distance on Saturday down Dublin’s South Circular Road with Duffy landing a neat left across the Cork man’s brow in the third stanza.

Duffy was handed a unanimous decision with the Raphoe Boxing Club President Peter O’Donnell - on the day he celebrated his 74th birthday - given a reprieve from his MC duties to make the official presentation to his clubman.

Duffy said: “Gary (McCullagh) and Gerry (Keaveney) were telling me to start fast and keep the pressure on. I had a feeling that I was up, but I had to keep it going. The two lads, Gary and Gerry, put so much time in to this and Cathal (McLaughlin) was up too. It’s just a brilliant feeling.”

Although the 54kgs category is not now an Olympic weight, Duffy has put himself in the frame for an Irish vest at some point in the near future.

Duffy said: “Hopefully now I’ll get the call down to the high performance team and get in to train with them.”

Raphoe Boxing Club Head Coach Gary McCullagh praised his young boxer, who has become the 11th person representing a Donegal club to win an Elite title. His win on Saturday takes to 16 the number of Elite titles that have been returned to Donegal.

McCullagh told Donegal Live: “It’s unreal. To win a senior title was unreal. This is absolutely fantastic. That’s 16 weeks of hard work, training and dedication.

“We were throwing every punch in the corner, dodging every punch. It’s absolutely brilliant for the club and for wee Peter who does so much for boxing, not just in Raphoe. Our wives, too, deserve a lot of credit for putting up with us being away so much lately.”

Joshua Olaniyan, who defeated Raphoe BC’s Cathal McLaughlin in his semi-final, dethroned Michael O’Reilly to land the middleweight title, avenging defeat to the Holy Family man in their previous Elite final.

On Friday night, Illies Gloves light-middle Matthew McCole, an Irish Third Level champ, was beaten by Eugene McKeever in a semi-final. McKeever took victory on a 4-1 split decision.

McCole had a walkover from a quarter-final while McKeever defeated Wayne Kelly of Ballynacargy, but Dean Walsh overcome McKeever in Saturday’s final.

Five Irish boxers - Olympic lightweight champion Kellie Harrington, Aoife O’Rourke, Michaela Walsh, Dean Clancy and Jack Marley - have already qualified for the 2024 Olympic Games.

Harrington created a little nugget of history when defeating Tramore’s Zara Breslin to win the women’s lightweight title- the eleventh Irish Elite title of her medal-laden career.

Jude Gallagher, from the Two Castles Boxing Club in Newtownstewart, has been a regular at Raphoe BC in recent years. Commonwealth Games gold medallist Gallagher, with former Elite champion Eric Donovan in his corner, was an impressive winner of the featherweight title, defeating Adam Hession in the final to give his Olympic hopes a real boost.