To mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the IABA is proud to celebrate the High Five Boxing Academy and the boxers, families, and clubs that make it an inspiring part of our community.
Launched in 2021 across four Dublin clubs, Drimnagh, Crumlin, St. Catherine’s, and Palmerstown by Paddy Dingle High Five was created to offer children with additional needs, and their families, a welcoming place within boxing.
Since then, the programme has been embraced by the IABA and has become a valued part of 13 clubs across the Association. Tralee Boxing Club, Monivea Boxing Club, St. Paul’s BC Belfast, Drimnagh Boxing Club, and Crumlin Boxing Club have come together to share how High Five has enriched their clubs and strengthened their communities.
When competition is removed, boxing becomes uniquely adaptable and is shaped around each boxer’s abilities, goals, and pace. It’s this flexibility, combined with coaches’ instinctive commitment to inclusion, that makes High Five so special.
Darragh Kane is a High Five Boxer at Crumlin Boxing Club, Dublin who lives with Autism and ADHD. He says “IWhen I got in to boxing, it helped me be much more out there, being much more social, being with people and understand that I am not the only person with the same problems”
Anthony Ward is a High Five Boxer at Tralee Boxing Club, Kerry says “If I hadn’t got this club I would have nothing to do at home. It’s my escape route. When I first came here, I didn’t know what was expected. Now, when I’m here with the gang, I like it” Anthony’s brother, Thomas, says the positive impacts of the programme extend beyond Anthony “There’s a third party here in my mother. She’s 73 years of age. Now, for the last 4 years, she has three hours a week free time for herself that she doesn’t have Anthony. Its after turning her life inside out now because she can go and meet her friends and have a coffee”
Alan Hynes is the father of a High Five Boxer in Monivea Boxing Club Galway and says, “My daughter is disabled and she has been welcomed in to this club, openly. She has just got involved with the training. You see all the kids that are down here, the kids with visual impairments. Everyone is treated the same. Once they come in the door, they’re a boxer, and they train….It’s massive in the era that we’re in that all kids are included. It’s massive for their cardio-vascular health and just to build up a sweat, and it’s great for mental health”
Lynda McGrath is a Coach at Tralee Boxing Club Kerry “We run lots of different programmes in Tralee Boxing Club, but this has got to be one of the most heartwarming programmes that we run. To see the kids grow in confidence, to see from the physical side of it to see their balance, hand-eye co-ordination improve – to see the parents so grateful that there is a programme there that is so inclusive to the feelings of their child is the best feeling in the world”
Ralph McKay is a Coach at St. Paul’s Boxing Club Belfast. He says “Sport is a great vehicle to help any child – boxing, or football or whatever. It gives them a chance.”
Paddy Dingle of Drimnagh Boxing Club is the founder of the programme. He says “Let’s make this programme grow, for years to come because at the end of the day, its about this children. Let’s get this programme as big as it can be”
Filmed and produced for IABA by E.C.