Gloves on as Portlaoise set to host Laois Traveller Pride showcase

The Laois Traveller Action Group is teaming up with Portlaoise Boxing Club to host a special boxing showcase celebrating Traveller Pride 2025. The event will highlight the talent, discipline, and community spirit of young fighters from the Traveller community and beyond.

The showcase aims to celebrate the positive role of sport in promoting inclusion, personal development, and cultural pride, with under-18 boxers from across Laois set to step into the ring for a series of sparring and skill displays.

For Portlaoise Boxing Club chairman Pat Ryan, the event reflects a long-standing commitment to inclusion at the club.

“35 years ago, we would designate a night for some of the members of the Traveller community, and they would do recreation training. Eventually, a number of them joined the club officially and participated in all activities in the club. We try to help and support everybody. We have people from all walks of life now in the club, Nigerians, South Africans, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Poles, so we have a multinational membership now. So that's really where we're at.”

He believes that every young person who follows the club's values deserves the same support, no matter their background.

“We'd have, equally now, members of mainstream, and we'd have as many Polish as Lithuanians. So really and truly, I suppose we try and assist and support our members once they're attending to the good habits, once they're applying the rules, and once that has been done, they are all members of the Portlaoise Boxing Club. There are no real Travellers, Nigerians, or Poles. It's very important that they are all members, and valued members, of the Portlaoise Boxing Club.”

Reflecting on his decades of coaching, Ryan says the strong involvement of Traveller families in the club has made a lasting impact.

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“I think it will be well supported. Many of the people in the club from the Traveller community have been with us for a considerable length of time, not just their children, but their parents. I think I've now coached three generations of members from the Travelling community. But as I said, the most important thing for me is that once they're attending to the good habits, obeying the rules, and of good behaviour.”

And for many of those families, the results have been exceptional.

“Many of them have been quite successful because it's their commitment from their parents to make sure that they are attending to all the good habits. Some of them are exceptional. Like, for talk's sake, we would have a number of them that have become national champions, and we would have some of them who have gold medals from the Europeans. This goes back a long time, and many generations.”

The Traveller Pride 2025 Boxing Showcase will take place on Thursday, May 29, at Portlaoise Boxing Club from 6pm to 8pm. The event is free to attend and open to all, with tea, coffee, and refreshments available on the night. Organisers are encouraging the wider community to come along, enjoy the displays, and celebrate the role of boxing in bringing people together.

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