Eighteen players who took part in last weekend’s Irish Senior Nationals at Fitzwilliam will feature in the Irish Junior Nationals, which start in Cork on Friday.
Amongst the headline entries for the star-studded, three-day tournament hosted by Sunday’s Well and Highfield is Celtic’s Aaron Knox, the BU19 No.1 seed who won two Men’s A matches at the Senior Nationals.
He defeated Squash Ireland junior performance coach David Noone 3-2 and 2025 Irish Junior Nationals champion Danny Lynch 3-1 to win through to the quarter-finals against Irish No.1 Sam Buckley.
The ninth-seeded Knox lost 0-3 to eventual champion Buckley before going on to finish in seventh place overall.
He has now been drawn in box one for the BU19s, where he will face Fitzwilliam’s Frank O’Flynn and Sutton’s Advik Ajay, two players who also took part in the Irish Senior Nationals Men’s A.
BU19 box two at Sunday’s Well includes Christian Dromgoole, the No.2-seeded Sutton player who won the Men’s B title last Sunday at the Senior Nationals. The No.3 Tyler Dromgoole and the No.6 Nathan Hann also took part in last week’s seniors.
BU17 No.2 seed Danny Jones of Sutton, BU15 No.1 seed Michael Lai of Mount Pleasant and No.2 seed John Quigley of Sutton were the other three junior boys to play in the Seniors Men’s B.
Celtic duo Adam Power and Harry Knox are the respective BU17 and BU13 No.1 seeds in Cork, with Galway’s Conor Mullery the BU11 No.1.
All six players in the GU19 at Sunday’s Well – Sutton’s Zoe Yeomans, Rebecca Jackson, Isabel Fallon and Ella Walsh, Mount Pleasant’s Riley Slade and Belfast’s Shriya Drawid – all took part in the Women’s A Irish Senior Nationals.
Yeomans and Drawid both reached the Fitzwilliam quarter-finals, where they respectively came up against the title-winning Hannah Craig and finalist Breanne Flynn.
Yeomans is the No.1 seed in Cork and Drawid No.3, with Walsh listed at No.2.
The other three Irish Junior Nationals players who mixed it with the country’s best seniors last weekend are Sutton’s Zoë Sheridan, Mount Pleasant’s Zoë Nyhan and Limerick’s Ruby Carroll.
Sheridan is the GU17 No.2 seed behind Sutton’s Lucy Walsh, Nyhan is the GU15 No.1 seed and Carroll is the GU13 No.1.
A total of 107 players are registered for the 10-event Junior Nationals.
Winning an Irish Senior Nationals title is nothing new to Hannah Craig. She had been crowned this country’s best in 2024 and again in 2025. However, her hat-trick title victory stirred up the emotions at Fitzwilliam on Sunday
Playing through the pain barrier was an ordeal. So, too, fighting off the admirable play that had Breanne Flynn threatening to take the victory, especially in the fourth game when she was 2-1 ahead and not far away from earning a match ball.
In the end, Craig hung tougher, doing just about enough in an epic five-gamer to secure the win. She then touched the hearts of everyone in attendance by dedicating the success to his ill father.
“Yeah, means a lot. Yeah, very happy. I would say happiness is the key emotion,” she told Squash Ireland after court one had emptied following the trophy presentation. “I wanted to do it for my dad today, especially. He’s got stage four cancer, unfortunately. So not sure, like, how many moments I’ll get like this.”
No wonder, then, she was revelling in the moment, posing repeatedly with the trophy before nailing the perfect snap to post to her followers on Instagram. Before this celebration, the season had been a challenge for the player aspiring to better last year’s No.61 PSA career high ranking.
“The start of the season was definitely tough weather in the storm with an injury, but I’m really excited for the rest of the season. There are a couple of big events coming up, but it was amazing to be here (in Dublin) and just to get that support.
“It really provides so much energy to have family in the crowd. So, yeah, super excited for the rest of the season now that I’m back in a better state physically.
“I was in quite a lot of physical discomfort but my brother was saying, ‘It’s going to be painful, like you are in pain but you’ve been training for that’. I have a trainer back home (in Calgary) called Ricardo and he’s put me through a lot of physical pain.
“So, it was like this is the time to really use that and dig deep. I said to myself, ‘Fight for every point’. Like, if you can come off here, win or lose, and know that you gave everything, then that’s all you can. Luckily it went my way but, I mean, it was a toss-up for sure at the end there.
“When it’s a fifth game situation, just everything takes over. Like, you’re not planning things. You’re not. I’m just letting the training and the hard work kind of come to the light in those moments.
“Like, it was a bit of a blur. But all I knew was just try and keep the straight lines. I tried to increase the intensity a little bit, make it physical. And, yeah, I was thinking just fight for every single thing that you can really. I honestly think I just went into a bit of an automatic zone.”
Craig was a 3-0 winner in last year’s final against Flynn, but she wasn’t in the slightest bit surprised that this rematch with the PSA No.104 went down to the wire, making it the standout victory in her title hat-trick.
“This one’s probably the most important one out of the three. It was such a brutal battle with Breanne. I know she’s playing so well and anyone could have taken that match, so I had to really dig deep and find the fight.
“It’s only a matter of time before Breanne is at equal par in terms of rankings. She is playing at a (level) definitely 30, 40 places above her ranking right now.
“I’m so happy for her to see her playing so well and I knew it was going to be tough. I’ve seen her results. I just had to back and trust myself and try and get my strengths out there.”
Last question: how was the hat-trick title going to be celebrated on Sunday night? “Oh, I think some food. I was cramping up after in my quad, so I need a banana first and foremost. And then, yeah, a good dinner. Get dinner with the family and friends and yeah, we’ll see. See if I deserve a drink after that.”
When Squash Ireland caught up with Sam Buckley for an interview just before Christmas, it was clear his uncharacteristic malfunction in the 2025 Irish Senior Nationals final was still a major sore point.
He was cruising to what would have been his fourth successive title, just three points away from a comfortable 3-0 victory over Sutton clubmate Conor Moran when things inexplicably fell apart. “A pretty big learning curve,” he reflected 10 months after the dramatic collapse left him beaten 3-2.
Despite it being a calendar year where he became the first Irishman to break into the PSA top 100 in more than a decade, doing so without being the reigning national champion certainly stung, but the upside was that this lingering pain ultimately spurred him on to a classy 2026 title success.
So polished was Buckley across his four-match title run this past weekend at the Fitzwilliam in Dublin that he only gave up a miserly total of 52 points. All the more impressive in this quartet of 3-0 victories was how he limited arch-rival Moran to just 13 of those points in Sunday’s one-sided final.
That was three points less than the 16 that Aaron Knox, the No.9, and Oisin Logan, the No.5, each managed in their respective quarter-final and semi-final ties against the No.1.
It was clinical title-match squash at its very best, and Buckley wasn’t shy in the aftermath to volunteer how a recent social media clip highlighting Moran’s winning points in last year’s decider only further fuelled his resolve to make amends and win back the title.
“It means the world to me, really,” he told Squash Ireland after the packed Fitzwilliam court one had cleared out with the trophy presentation completed followed his compelling 11-9, 11-2, 11-2 triumph.
“Leaving here empty-handed last year was probably one of the lowest points I’ve ever had in a squash court. To be two-love, 8-4 up and managing to find a way to lose, it’s tough.
“I’ve spent many days, probably every day to be honest, since last year thinking about how I’m going to right that wrong and then it’s kind of funny, I was only saying to someone the other day, it feels like every day for the last three weeks when I open up Instagram there’s a video of that rally from two-love, 8-4.
“It just kept giving me these little reminders of, ‘I’m not going to make the same mistake again’, so I’m glad that I put the wrongs right.”
At the heart of Buckley’s 2026 final win was his first-game surge, an acceleration that left no one watching in any doubt he was very much up for his showpiece decider. “The first game was pivotal, really,” he said.
“I actually started quite slow in the first game; I think I was three-love down in the first, it was kind of ebb and flow through the first game, and I was very happy to get over the line in the first game. I really feel that he [Moran] was pushing hard in the first game, and I think it was a big game for the outcome of the match.”
His game one momentum put him on course for a comfortable victory, but was there a fleeting flashback in the third that he was now in the exact same cruising situation as last year? There was.
“I remember a brief moment at two-love and I think I was six-one up; I just remember thinking, ‘Just play it one point at a time’. I had a pretty clear game plan that I stuck to for the whole thing; I actually didn’t really go away from it at all.
“Maybe in the first game at the start, I wasn’t quite doing what I should have been doing. But once I got into a flow of it then and settled down, I felt like I was doing the right stuff.”
The calibre of Buckley’s convincing success emphasised how much better a player he now is 12 months on from his bruising runner-up finish.
“To be honest, I feel like I’m a different player, probably playing a slightly different brand of squash as well, moving the ball around a bit more, hoping that I’m a bit less predictable. Definitely a bit fitter and yeah playing with a bit more confidence.”
Kudos to Rob Owen, his mentor, for that. “Mainly, I’ve been getting coaching with Rob Owen in Birmingham; he’s kind of been leading me in the right direction every day since I started there in September.
“He got me in the right headspace today, gave me a clear game plan, so I knew exactly what I was doing and yeah, stuck to it. It paid off.”
Buckley came into the Nationals ranked No.105 on the PSA chart and a super foundation has now been laid for him to go on and surpass his career-best ranking of 95 in the months ahead.
“It means the world for me to be the national champion again, but I know it’s just like the start of hopefully for this second half of the season of bigger ambitions, more of things that I want to tick off, keep moving up the rankings and yeah, just win some more tournaments hopefully.”
Sam Buckley has reclaimed the Irish Senior Nationals Men’s A title he lost last year to Conor Moran while Hannah Craig retained her Women’s A title for the third year in a row, winning a thriller at Fitzwilliam in Dublin against Breanne Flynn.
Buckley, the PSA men’s No.105, was denied winning a fourth title in a row 12 months ago when Moran dramatically struck back from 0-2 to win 3-2. However, he roared to an emphatic 3-0 (11-6, 11-4, 11-6) victory this time around against the PSA No.141.
The opening game was critical, with Buckley pipping his Sutton clubmate 11-9, and he drove on from there, winning the next two games by convincing 11-2 margins.
“It means the world to me,” he said. “Leaving here empty-handed last year was probably one of the lowest points I have ever had on a squash court. To be two-love and 8-4 up and find a way to lose was tough.
“I spent many days, probably every day to be honest, since last year thinking about it, how I am going to right that wrong.”
Buckley’s match took just 44 minutes to complete, which was in sharp contrast to the 77-minute, five-game Women’s A epic where Craig eventually pipped Flynn 3-2 (11-8, 10-12, 6-11, 12-10, 11-9).
Last year’s decider between the pair ended 3-0 in Craig’s favour, but this year’s rematch was a remarkable contest.
The Calgary-based Craig, the PSA women’s No.66, struck first, taking game one, but she lost the next two games to trail 2-1.
Flynn, the PSA No.104, then threatened to take the title in the fourth. The game eventually went to a tie-break that Craig managed to nick 12-10 and she then carried the fifth 11-9 to clinch her title hat-trick. “This one was probably the most important one of the last three years,” she said.
“It was such a brutal battle with Breanne: I know she is playing so well. Anyone could have taken that match, so I had to really dig deep. It means a lot.”
Michael Creaven and Hannah McGugan respectively won the third-place play-offs at the Senior Nationals, while Christian Dromgoole clinched the Men’s A title with a 3-0 (11-9, 11-4, 15-13) win over John Abrahamse.
With deep sadness, we wish to share the news of the passing of James “Jimmy” Walker, father of Eugene Walker, Masters’ Chairperson, who passed away yesterday.
The Board of Squash Ireland, along with the wider squash community, extend our sincere condolences to Eugene and to all of Jimmy’s family and friends at this very difficult time.
Our thoughts are particularly with his family as they mourn the loss of a much loved father. Jimmy’s passing will be keenly felt by all who knew him, and by those connected through the squash community.
Reposing will take place on Friday (6th February) from 3.00pm, with Requiem Mass on Saturday (7th February) at 10.00am, followed by burial. Full details regarding funeral arrangements can be found on rip.ie – here
May he rest in peace.
The die is now cast for the 2026 Irish Senior Nationals following the publication of the draws for the three-event, 60-player tournament that gets underway at Fitzwilliam in Dublin on Friday.
Twenty-four players will contest the Men’s A title, with eight round one matches getting the action going.
These ties include the prospect of ninth seed Aaron Knox going up against the No.24 David Noone, his Squash Ireland junior performance coach, for the reward of a round of 16 clash with No.8 Danny Lynch, last weekend’s Intervarsities title winner with Trinity A*.
Friday night’s round of 16 will see the top seeds, Sam Buckley [1] and Conor Moran [2], on court. Buckley, the PSA No.105, is looking to reclaim the title he surrendered in dramatic circumstances last year to Sutton clubmate Moran, the PSA No.141.
Buckley was two games up and on course for a 3-0 win when leading 8-4 in the third in last February’s final, only to come unstuck and lose a five-game thriller that finished 17-15 in the fifth.
Either Jamie Byrne [17] or Jack Brannigan [16] will be Buckley’s round of 16 opponent, with Dean Dromgoole [15] or Frank O’Flynn [18] set to face Moran at the same stage of the tournament.
Switching to the Women’s A section, where there is a start list of 17 players, defending champion Hannah Craig will begin her title defence against either Stephanie Ryan [16] or Alessia Osborne [17] on Friday night.
The PSA No.66 was a 3-0 winner in last year’s final over Breanne Flynn, the PSA No.104, whose latest campaign features an opener against Zoë Nyhan [15].
Nineteen players will contest the Men’s B section and with last year’s champion Brian Knox not defending his title due to his Men’s A participation, Rex Lloyd has been installed as the No.1 seed and will open against either Enrique Pelayo [17] or Keith Lowther [16] on Saturday morning.
Christian Dromgoole, the No.2, will begin his title quest with a Friday night tie versus either Nicholas Wood [15] or David Connolly [18].
Squash legend Willie Hosey has been inducted into the Carlow Sports Hall of Fame, joining his late father Willie Snr, who received the award in 1984.
Willie Snr was part of the Carlow GAA football team that won the 1944 Leinster title, but it was in squash where Willie Jnr found his fame after his father encouraged him to stick at the sport following his switch from tennis.
It was sound father-to-son advice as Hosey went on to win 10 Irish Senior Nationals titles. He still remains active in the sport as a player and plans to take part in the World Masters Championships later this year in Perth with his brother.
Having flown in from his home in Ontario, the Canadian-based Irish squash star was delighted to be honoured at the Nationalist’s Sports Star Awards, where GAA legend Pat Spillane was present along with the Sam Maguire Cup.
Awards night MC Brendan Hennessy said before calling Hosey to the stage: “He is one of the most famous faces ever in the history of Carlow sport. He has made an incredible trip from where he now lives in Ontario, Canada, to be here tonight to join his legendary father in the Carlow Sports Hall of Fame.
“He is a name we all grew up with, he is one of the first Carlow names I knew to go onto the world stage, and I’m delighted to meet him back in Carlow tonight.”
Hosey, who is now coaching at the Richmond Hill Squash Club in Ontario, explained that it was love that kept him in Canada following an initial squash tour visit. “I went on a squash tour to Canada and I ran into her, 1988 or something like that. I ended up going to Canada for one year and 35 years later, here we are,” he said.
Accepting his award, the Tullow Street native added: “It’s the sort of good news, bad news winning this award. The good news is I am thrilled; the bad news is young people don’t get the Hall of Fame award.”
Explaining how he picked up the sport, Hosey said: “The squash courts in Carlow were about 1975, something like that. We were all involved in tennis at the time and when the courts came, we all gave it a go.
“We didn’t know what this sport was, and my father probably introduced me to the game more than anybody. I took to it, I loved it, it was great. I went to Dublin for a couple of years and then said I would give it a go professionally and kept going.”
Hosey’s emergence resulted in Carlow becoming a squash hotbed from the 1980s onwards, and he paid tribute to the exploits of Arthur Gaskin, the current Ireland head coach, and his nephew Sam Olwill.
“We have 18 (Irish Nationals titles between us). I am very proud of that, too, with Arthur, because I babysat him when he was really young; his best friend was my nephew.
“Arthur won eight national titles, so for a town like Carlow to win 18 national titles in a sport that is really dominated in Dublin and the bigger cities, I’m super proud of that. I’m also Sam Olwill’s uncle and godfather. He and his brother Fintan are doing everything they can to try to keep the sport strong in Carlow.
“I have spent so much time in Carlow over the last 35 years, I probably get back three times a year. I love it here. That’s why I am here today and very proud… I love the town, love the people, love seeing all the youngsters winning awards here tonight. It’s fantastic.”
Trinity College Dublin swept the boards at the 2026 Intervarsities Championships, winning all three divisions at the 15-team, five-college event held over three days.
BU19 Irish Junior champion Danny Lynch, club captain and tournament organiser Sarah Jane Smith, Sara Sabry, Jamie Porter and David Smith made up the Trinity A* team that scored 57 points from its four match victories in Division A.
That was enough to give them a six-point top-flight buffer ahead of the second-place Trinity A team consisting of Ryan Kelly, Dylan Kaplan, Charlotte Vengrin, Parth Maheshwari and Victoria Protsepova.
Queen’s University Belfast A were third with 27 points, with University College Cork A in fourth on 20 points and Royal College of Surgeons Ireland A, last year’s title winners in Belfast, finishing fifth with nine points.
The Trinity B team, made up of Justin Buhl, Sanskriti Gautam, Shay McDonnell, Caitlin McConnon and Ayushmaan Kumar Yadav, won Division B with 53 points and four match wins.
That placed them 12 points ahead of University of Galway A, whose team featured Michael Hayes, Cathal McGrath, Namus Calder, Asif Khan and Daire Ryan on 41 points and three match wins. UCC B were third with 33 points, QUB B fourth with 31 and RCSI B fifth with four points.
Switching to Division C, the Trinity C team of Nora Collins, Kate Ng, Abdul Halim Bin Mohd Nadziruddin, Zeyad Fouda and Raj Upadhyaya finished top of the table on 42 points after three match wins.
That put them 12 points clear of runners-up QUB C, featuring James McCarroll, Timothy Low, Simon Shemetilo, Jack Simms and Daniel McCormack who had 28 points and two match wins. UCC C were third with 26 points, NUIG B fourth and RCSI C fifth.
Trinity A* skipper Smith was thrilled that the Intervarsities tournament was a success, especially as it coincided with Saturday night’s black-tie ball celebrating the host college’s 90-year involvement in squash.
“It’s been fantastic,” she told Squash Ireland following Sunday’s trophy presentations at College Green. “We were really delighted to have 15 teams here at Printing House Square from all over Ireland.
“It’s a fantastic venue. We’re very lucky to have the new courts and it was a great weekend of squash. Really delighted we could celebrate the 90th anniversary of Trinity Squash as well. We had a fantastic event on Saturday in the Dining Hall.
“The Intervarsities went brilliantly. We had this venue at Trinity and also used LCC in Rathmines. Division C was over there on Saturday and then everyone got to play at least one match in Trinity. It went really well.
“It was a brilliant weekend for the Trinity club. Its teams came out on top in all three divisions, but there were lots of close matches,” she added before passing the tournament hosting responsibilities over to UCC for the 2027 Championships.
Fifteen teams from five colleges will compete at this weekend’s Intervarsities Championships in Dublin.
Hosted by Trinity, who are also staging a black-tie gala dinner on Saturday night to celebrate their 90-year involvement in squash, they will be joined at the tournament by the Royal College of Surgeons, Queen’s University Belfast, University College Cork and the University of Galway.
Listed among the 75 players set to take part is Galway’s Danny Lynch, the three-time Ireland selection for the World Squash Junior Championships, who was chosen as a Trinity College Dublin sports scholarship recipient for 2025/26.
The reigning Irish BU19 Junior champion, who followed up appearances in Nancy and Houston with last July’s Ireland trip to Cairo, is now part of the Trinity scholarship programme catering for 62 athletes across 20 sports.
The squash tournament gets underway at 5:30pm on Friday with a Division A clash featuring two Trinity teams. RCSI A, QUB A and UCC A are the three other Division A teams.
Aside from the three courts at Trinity, two courts at Leinster Cricket Club are also scheduled to host a half-dozen Division C matches on Saturday.
Last year’s Intervarsities, hosted by Queen’s, ended with RCSI winning Division A ahead of Trinity, whose Front Square dining hall celebration this weekend of 90 years of squash at the college will see players, coaches, supporters and friends from across the generations reconnect.
https://www.facebook.com/TrinitySquashDusrc
Scott Graham has highlighted how a visit to Celtic Squash Club showed the value of the hours of paperwork involved in applying for Community Sports Facility Funding.
The Squash Ireland CEO visited the Waterford City club on Saturday to drop off a Hit squash cannon. There, he met Conor O’Neill, a Celtic coach and secretary of Squash Munster, and club stalwart Eugene Walker, who last year was appointed Masters committee chairperson.
O’Neill was on court with some players from the local De La Salle school, and their enthusiasm for using the Hit cannon illustrated its use as a coaching tool.
“I dropped a Hit squash cannon into Celtic on Saturday,” said Graham. “There was a good buzz, and it was great to meet Eugene Walker and Conor O’Neill, the club coach who is the secretary for Squash Munster.
“It makes all the hours of paperwork (in applying for funding) worthwhile when you see the joy on the players’ faces when they saw the cannon. They were all very excited to start using it.
“The club is really thriving in terms of its junior section; they have about 40 juniors, and they have offered to help other local clubs who are looking to establish or grow their junior sections. They are very open to offering advice or tips on what has worked for them and what hasn’t.”
The Hit cannon delivered to Celtic is one of 20 Squash Ireland has distributed around the country. “The Hit cannon was one of 20 pieces of equipment we secured through the Community Sports Facility Fund,” continued Graham.
“We have distributed 20 cannons, and there were about 60 of the junior squash packs. We are also expecting delivery of first aid kits and defibrillators in the next couple of weeks; we will be distributing them to clubs that have made an application.”
