December 2015
Fionnuala McCormack (Athletics)
The 2011 and 2012 European Cross Country gold medallist just missed out on another individual medal in the 2015 race, finishing fourth, but led the Irish team, completed by Lizzie Lee, Caroline Crowley and Ciara Durkan, to bronze for the second successive year. She went on to register a personal best to finish 20th in the Olympic marathon, before taking fifth in last Sunday’s European Cross Country Championships.
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January
Áine McKenna (Basketball)
The Kerry woman won the Most Valuable Player award for her performance in the National Cup final when she captained Glanmire club Team Montenotte in their outstanding 96-64 victory over Killester. That win gave them a three-in-a-row and a record sixth success in the competition, McKenna featuring in five of their triumphs.
February
Ciara Mageean (Athletics)
After a hugely promising junior career, the Portaferry, Co Down runner was blighted with injuries, last representing Ireland at the 2012 European Championships. But she came back in some style in 2016, breaking the Irish 1,500m and mile indoor records in February, before going on to win bronze in the 1,500m at the European Championships in July. She reached the semi-finals in the same event in Rio.
March
Nina Carberry (Horse Racing)
Our 2011 Sportswoman of the Year won the Foxhunter Chase at Cheltenham, on the Enda Bolger-trained On The Fringe, for the second year running, making it three victories in the race in all, and six career victories at The Festival. Carberry recently announced that she will miss the rest of the 2016/17 National Hunt season - she is expecting her first child.
April
Ellis O’Reilly (Gymnastics)
The 18-year-old became the first woman to represent Ireland in gymnastics at the Olympic Games. The Londoner, whose Armagh-born grandfather qualified her for Ireland, finished in the top half of the field at the 2015 World Championships in Glasgow to win a place at April’s Olympic Test Event in Rio, and from there she earned her place in the Games.
May
Kellie Harrington (Boxing)
When the Dubliner set off for Kazakhstan back in May to compete in her first ever World Championships she was unseeded and had little international experience behind her. When she returned home she had a silver medal around her neck. Harrington beat opponents from Lithuania, Germany, the home favourite and a Canadian before losing to China’s Asian champion Wenlu Yang in the light-welterweight final.
June
Leona Maguire, Olivia Mehaffey and Maria Dunne (Golf)
We’ve had plenty of double monthly awards over the years but June produced our very first treble, the contributions of the Irish members of the Curtis Cup team that reclaimed the trophy from the United States at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club, only Britain and Ireland’s second success in the competition in a decade, making it impossible to separate them..
July
Jenny Egan (Canoeing)
The disappointment of narrowly missing out on Olympic qualification for the second Games running didn’t stop Egan from having a hugely successful summer, the highlights coming in Portugal and the Czech Republic where she won gold and silver World Cup medals, making her the only Irish canoeist, male or female, to medal in World Cup events.
August
Annalise Murphy (Sailing)
It might have taken four years, but the pain of missing out on a medal at London 2012 was banished by the Dubliner on Guanabara Bay in Rio when she won silver after the final race of the women’s Laser Radial. It was Ireland’s first medal in sailing since David Wilkins and James Wilkinson took silver in the Flying Dutchman class in Moscow back in 1980.
September
Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal (Cycling)
Dunlevy and her pilot McCrystal won gold in the Road Time Trial and silver in the Road Race at the Paralympics, contributing handsomely to the Irish tally of four gold, four silver and three bronze - three medals came in the discus, from Cork women Noelle Lenihan, Orla Barry and Niamh McCarthy, and another in swimming from Dubliner Ellen Keane.
October
Laura Graham (Athletics)
The 30-year-old from Kilkeel in Co Down only made her marathon debut in Belfast six years ago but she was the first Irish woman home in this year’s Dublin marathon, just her sixth run at the distance, knocking six minutes off her previous best, just three minutes off the qualifying time for the 2017 World Championships.
November
Denise Gaule (Camogie) and Bríd Stack (Gaelic football)
Both players had already enjoyed a memorable year, but it was capped in November by them being chosen by their peers as the Camogie and Gaelic football Players of the Year. Gaule made an outstanding contribution to Kilkenny winning their first Camogie All-Ireland senior title in 22 years, and Stack did the same in Cork’s six-in-a-row and their 11th title in 12 years.
