Players from six clubs won Irish Junior Nationals titles on Sunday in Cork. Belfast, Celtic, Mount Pleasant and Sutton took home two titles each, with Limerick and Galway also taking a top spot on the podium at the 10-event tournament played across three days at Sunday’s Well and Highfield.
Two 2025 winners in Galway – Limerick’s Ruby Carroll and Sutton’s Danny Jones – retained their champion status. Carroll won last year’s GU13 title as the fifth seed and she made it a double at that age-grade, this time as the No.1 seed.
Celtic’s Daisy Morrissey, last year’s third-place finisher, showed her prowess by taking out Mount Pleasant’s Aurora McDonnell in the semi-finals, but she had no answer to Carroll’s potent play in a final that the defending champion won 3-0 three months after the same result was the outcome of their Irish Junior Open final clash at Sutton.
The Limerick girl’s weekend got even better after her Nationals victory as she soon learned that she was chosen as Squash Ireland’s Junior Player of the Year, an award presented to her by CEO Scott Graham and junior development coach Michael Conroy [Carroll is pictured above, second from right, with Celtic pair Morrissey and English, and CEO Graham after the GU13 trophy presentation].
While Carroll’s Nationals title double came at GU13, Sutton’s Jones enjoyed the distinction of a double at different age grades. He defeated Nathan Walsh, the Celtic player from Freshford, in a five-game BU15 final feast 12 months ago and after the pair won through to the BU17 decider, the champion was a 3-0 winner on this occasion.
Seeded as No.2, Jones was one of four non-top-seeded players to win a title in Cork. Another No.2, Mount Pleasant’s Anna Maria Deak, defeated the No. 1-rated, Georgie Ryan of Windsor, in a thrilling GU11 five-setter.
The result was 3-0 in the GU15 final, with the No.2, Gabby Curran of Belfast, defeating the No.1, Zoë Nyhan of Mount Pleasant. This outcome was a reversal of the 3-0 win for Nyhan in the 2025 final between the two players.
The other seeding upset was in the GU19 where Belfast’s Shriya Drawid, the No.3 rank, was a 3-1 final winner over No.1 Zoe Yeomans of Sutton in a tightly contested match.
Drawid was a beaten quarter-finalist last year, losing out to eventual champion Ella Erickson, but her run to this year’s final included a 3-0 box win over Ella Walsh, the No.2 seed from Sutton, who was the 2025 runner-up.
A No.1 seed who certainly delivered the goods was Celtic’s Aaron Knox in the BU19, rounding off his campaign with a 3-1 win over Christian Dromgoole, the No.2 from Sutton, in a terrifically entertaining decider.
The pair had last year contested the third-place play-off, with Knox winning 3-0, but Sunday’s rematch at Sunday’s Well was a far tighter affair with some compelling passages of all-court play.
It included Dromgoole, last weekend’s Irish Senior Nationals Men’s B title winner, fighting off several champ balls before eventually losing out in the fourth.
Knox’s title win was in keeping with the pattern of players who finished down the rankings last year in their age-grade stepping up this time around as the No.1 seeds and succeeding.
Like Knox, Mount Pleasant’s Michael Lai finished third in the 2025, but triumphed 12 months later as the BU15 No.1, defeating Sutton’s John Quigley 3-0 in their box decider.
Harry Knox, last month’s BU13 Czech Open champion, finished runner-up last year at the Nationals when seeded No.2. Now, returning as No.1, he took the BU13 title with a 3-1 win over Sutton’s Eoin O’Brien, who had gone one game up in their exciting match.
Galway’s Conor Mullery, the BU11 top seed, clinched his title by winning the box decider 3-0 versus Celtic’s Dylan Dunphy, the No.2 seed who started out at Dunhill. The success highlighted Mullery’s excellent progress as he finished sixth a year ago.
Meanwhile, it was an all-Sutton affair at GU17 where No.1 Lucy Walsh defeated clubmate Zoë Sheridan, the No.2, 3-0 in their final.
IRISH JUNIOR NATIONALS 2026
BU19 FINAL: Celtic’s Aaron Knox [1] WON 3-1 (11-4, 10-12, 11-5, 11-9) v Sutton’s Christian Dromgoole [2];
Third-place play-off: Fitzwilliam’s Frank O’Flynn [4] WON 3-2 (3-11, 6-11, 12-10, 11-5, 11-6) v Sutton’s Tyler Dromgoole
GU19 FINAL: Belfast’s Shriya Drawid [3] WON 3-1 (9-11, 11-7, 11-7, 12-10) v Sutton’s Zoe Yeomans [1];
Third-place play-off: Sutton’s Rebecca Jackson [5] WALKOVER v Sutton’s Ella Walsh [2]
BU17 FINAL: Sutton’s Danny Jones [2] WON 3-0 (11-7, 11-6, 11-7) v Freshford’s Nathan Walsh [4];
Third-place play-off: Celtic’s Adam Power [1] WON 3-0 (11-6, 11-5, 11-5) v Sutton’s Samuel Hann (3)
GU17 FINAL: Sutton’s Lucy Walsh [1] WON 3-0 (11-5, 11-8, 11-7) v Sutton’s Zoë Sheridan [2];
Third-place play-off: Highfield’s Maggie Jones [3] WON (3-0 v 11-5, 11-9, 11-7) v Mount Pleasant’s Ashrakat Elmahgoub [4]
BU15 BOX DECIDER: Mount Pleasant’s Michael Lai [1] WON 3-0 (11-7, 11-9, 11-5) v Sutton’s John Quigley [2];
Third: Sutton’s Harry Yeomans [4], Fourth: Celtic’s Jamie Morrissey [3
GU15 FINAL: Belfast’s Gabby Curran [2] WON 3-0 (11-9, 11-5, 11-5) v Mount Pleasant’s Zoë Nyhan [1];
Third-place play-off: Sutton’s Saibh Darcy [3] WON 3-1 (11-6, 7-11, 11-6, 11-7) v Mount Pleasant’s Raghad Aboelala [5]
BU13 FINAL: Celtic’s Harry Knox [1] WON 3-1 (11-13, 11-3, 11-8, 11-8) v Sutton’s Eoin O’Brien [2];
Third-place play-off: Belfast’s Josh Archer [3] WON 3-0 (11-1, 11-6, 11-9) v Mount Pleasant’s Ailong Chen [5]
GU13 FINAL: Limerick’s Ruby Carroll [1] WON 3-0 (11-2, 11-4, 11-4) v Celtic’s Daisy Morrissey [2];
Third-place play-off: Celtic’s Caoimhe English [4] WON 3-1 (7-11, 11-3, 11-9, 11-4) v Mount Pleasant’s Aurora McDonnell [3]
BU11 BOX DECIDER: Galway’s Conor Mullery [1] WON 3-0 v (11-1, 11-8, 11-4) v Dunhill’s Dylan Dunphy [2];
Third: Ballypatrick’s Zach Kelly [4]; Fourth: Galway’s Harvey Coyne [6]
GU11 FINAL: Mount Pleasant’s Anna Maria Deak [2] WON 3-2 (11-9, 6-11, 11-13, 11-4, 11-7) v Windsor’s Georgie Ryan [1];
Third-place play-off: Fitzwilliam’s Jessica O’Gorman [5] WON 3-2 (3-11, 10-12, 11-8, 11-9, 11-7) v Windsor’s Sofia Heron [3]
