Squash Ireland CEO Scott Graham has thanked Sport Ireland after it was confirmed on Tuesday that the organisation has been awarded €80,000 in the latest round of funding for high-performance Irish sport.
It was last year when Sport Ireland established the performance development fund, a specific programme targeted at NGBs such as Squash Ireland, which are either developing high-performance programmes for future Olympic Games or have stepped down from the existing high-performance programme that currently caters for 16 sports.
Squash Ireland is one of nine NGBs to receive performance development funding and it comes after a year in which its four leading players on the PSA circuit – Hannah Craig, Breanne Flynn, Sam Buckley and Conor Moran – all achieved career-best rankings.
Craig, who will be the first Irish player in 12 years to play at the World Championships next month in Egypt, achieved her career-best ranking of 60 when the latest update was confirmed by PSA on Monday.
That latest women’s list also confirmed a jump for Flynn to No.98, which equalled her career-best ranking set last month.
Meanwhile, Buckley, who broke into the men’s 100 for the first time last November and reached as high as No.95, is this week’s No.107, and Moran is currently at No.150 five months after setting his career-best of No.138 in November.
All four players will be part of the Ireland contingent at next week’s European Team Championships in Amsterdam.
Meanwhile, the new Junior Performance Academy was also founded last summer to help develop the next wave of future elite-level stars and it recently had the fillip of a second-place finish for the U13 team at the Five Nations in Dublin.
Speaking following Tuesday’s announcement of a record investment of €28.5million in Irish high-performance sport for 2026, Graham said: “Thank you to Sport Ireland and to the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan, and Charlie McConalogue, the Minister of State with responsibility for Sport and Postal Policy.
“Squash Ireland really appreciate the €80,000 high-performance funding that we have received. Just last year, we were elevated to the high-performance development sport status.
“That was a very important milestone for Squash Ireland in terms of our development and what we are trying to do in terms of putting in place a structure at a high performance level for the juniors and also for seniors.
“The financial support is very much appreciated, but also the expertise and experience of the people with Sport Ireland’s high-performance unit and the Institute. We really appreciate that support.
“We have seen the impact of that already with the establishment of the Junior Performance Academy, which ran for the first time this season, and we are looking to refine that and relaunch it for next season.
“At the top level, we have four players now who have achieved career-high world rankings within the last couple of months.
“I see Hannah Craig just this week is at a career-high world ranking of 60. Breanne Flynn has also reached a new career high and is inside the top 100, and I know that Sam Buckley and Conor Moran are also improving and pushing to improve their rankings.
“We are moving in the right direction in terms of the structure and credit to the players who are progressing up the world rankings as well. We’re looking to continue that development over the next couple of years.”
