Athletics Ireland’s High-Performance Strategy 2025-2028, recently refreshed and re-published, commits to advancing the professionalisation of our high-performance coaching staff. Athletics Ireland has been enthusiastically supported in this regard by Sport Ireland’s High Performance Coaching unit, led by Ciarán Ward, which has committed to €210,000 in additional funding over the 2025-2028 Olympic cycle under the Professional Coach Programme.
The Professional Coach Programme aims to expand the capacity of our high-performance team through the recruitment of professional coaching roles, and Athletics Ireland can now announce several recent appointments following this additional investment.
Mark Kenneally has served as Performance Endurance Lead since 2023 and now also takes on additional responsibility as Performance Coaching Lead, in which capacity he will oversee Athletics Ireland and Sport Ireland’s investment in performance coaching, while working with event-group leads towards the expansion and alignment of our programmes, to create a professionalised training environment domestically and via overseas camps to better serve our athletes and their coaches.
Emmett Dunleavy has been appointed as Performance Endurance Coach and will work alongside Mark Kenneally in overseeing the National Endurance Group. Emmett has been one of Ireland’s most prominent middle- and long-distance coaches for some time and has been a key part of Ireland’s success at the European Cross Country Championships over the last number of years. The National Endurance Programme has the primary objectives of providing a more challenging, stimulating training environment for athletes training in Ireland with international aspirations, and to provide training camp opportunities for these athletes at altitude and warm weather to facilitate ongoing development, and preparation for specific competition.
Our high-performance strategy commits to enhancing the support of and investment in our Performance Pathway Programme to better prepare our talented young athletes for the challenges inherent in transitioning to full senior international athletes competing on the global stage. Jacqui Freyne has led the Pathway programme since 2015 and now will be supported by Niamh Fitzgerald, who has been appointed as Pathway Endurance Coach, Karen Kirk, who has commenced as Pathway Sprints & Relays lead, and Barry Pender and Tom Reynolds who join the high performance team as Performance Jumps Coaches, and will work across both Senior and Pathway programmes.
Niamh Fitzgerald had an outstanding career as a middle-distance athlete and represented Ireland at European and World Cross Country Championships. She finished 8th at the 1999 World University Games over 1500m. She has been coaching for 14 years with Lucan Harriers and currently guides her daughter Saoirse who has represented Ireland at EYOF, European U18 and European U20 Championships.
Karen Kirk has been an integral part of Athletics Ireland relay programme for many years and was at the helm when Ireland’s U20 Women’s 4x100m claimed global silver in 2018. Karen also led the Irish Senior Women’s 4x100m to a national record at the European Championships in 2018.
Barry Pender is a renowned high-jumper and coach with a lifetime best of 2.26 which places him 3rd on the Irish all-time list. He has been serving as a Development Officer for Athletics Ireland where he has designed and delivered coach education, coach network days and coaching workshops, and has also served as jumps coach in DCU.
Tom Reynolds has extensive experience in performance athletics and has served as Performance Pathway lead at Athletics Northern Ireland for several years. He also has extensive coaching experience and most notably has been a key part of Kate O’Connor’s coaching team as she has achieved unprecedented success with medals at Commonwealth, European and World Championships.
On the senior side, Barry and Tom will work with Field-Event lead David Sweeney, who has served in that role since 2019, and their appointment will facilitate a greater investment of David’s time in the development of Irish throwing.
Sport Ireland have also invested in Athletics Ireland’s high-performance programme via additional Pathway funding, which has facilitated the appointment of Shane Ryan as Pathway Strength & Conditioning Lead. Shane has a strong background in performance coaching, holds a degree in Strength & Conditioning and a PhD in Health Science, and currently lectures in UL’s PESS department.
Paul McNamara, Athletics Ireland’s Performance Director, notes “Through our High-Performance Strategy we have committed to ambitious and challenging targets as we seek to continuously evolve the programme as we build towards LA 2028 and beyond, underpinned by an athlete-centred, performance-focussed, coach driven philosophy. Capacity-building has been a focus for us, and we are delighted with the calibre of our recent appointments, all of whom are steeped in performance athletics, and who are already contributing to our performance goals. Sport Ireland’s continued and enhanced investment is a strong endorsement of our strategy for performance coaching.”
Athletics Ireland High Performance Strategy
