Mayo’s Peter Mullen to be honoured at Volunteers in Sport Awards

MAYO's Peter Mullen will receive nationwide recognition for his years of dedicated volunteer work with St. Anne’s Boxing Club at next week’s virtual Federation of Irish Sport Volunteers in Sport Awards ceremony, proudly supported by EBS.

Once described as ‘the face of Westport boxing for over half a century’ by the president of the Mayo Boxing Board, Peter is certainly that and more to the people of St. Anne’s Boxing Club.

His involvement in boxing dates back to 1967 when he and a group of friends set up St. Anne’s in a vacant room of an old building, designing and building the ring in which they would spar in.

As a boxer, Peter won numerous Mayo and Connacht titles before winning his first Irish Junior Heavyweight title in 1971.

He has represented St. Anne’s around the world and led out an Irish boxing team at a parade in Madison Square Garden in New York. Peter is also a highly regarded boxing judge, judging matches at county, provincial and national level.

He is a dedicated volunteer and leader at St. Anne’s and continues to commit his time and effort to the club today.

The Volunteers in Sport Awards celebrate the contributions of the band of volunteers across the country who give their time to Irish sport and physical activity every year. This equates to approximately 37.3 million hours of volunteering across Ireland’s 13,000 registered sports clubs and associations and, according to Sport Ireland's 2021 'Researching the Value of Sport in Ireland' report, is worth an estimated €1.5bn to the exchequer.

Throughout September and October members of the public, sports clubs and governing bodies were invited to nominate an individual whose contribution to sport and physical activity in Ireland has made a real difference to their community, club or county. The nominations and award recipients were selected by a judging panel consisting of 12 individuals drawn from sports administration, the volunteer community and media, and included former director general of the GAA, Paraic Duffy, RTÉ broadcaster Marie Crowe and CEO of Gaisce, Yvonne McKenna.

In addition to the 32 county level award winners, Amina Moustafa, a volunteer across many different sports including football, basketball and swimming, received the overall Outstanding Achievement Award for her incredible service to the promotion of sport amongst women of diverse ethnic backgrounds, as well as her continued support of Sport Against Racism Ireland (SARI).

Máire Allen and Jacqueline McCormack have also received a Special Recognition Award for their amazing work with Roscommon Special Olympics Club.

Pádraic Kearney (RIP) has been honoured with a Special Recognition Award for his commitment to Gaelic Games in Adare GAA Club (Limerick).

Commenting on the awards, Minister of State for Sport and the Gaeltacht, Jack Chambers, said: “These awards have a special place in the sporting calendar as they recognise those who have given an incredible amount of time throughout the year who have ensured that sport can takes place in our communities, and they do so without the expectation of gratitude or reward.”

CEO of the Federation of Irish Sport, Mary O’Connor, said: “Despite another very challenging year for sport, we have once again seen how important volunteering has been to communities across Ireland. We have an enormous amount of gratitude for the army of volunteers who have ensured that sport could take place in a safe and controlled manner. Whether it be on pitches, courts, tracks, pools or even community halls across the country, the volunteers are always there to make sure sport and physical activity continues to take place around Ireland.

“It gives me immense pride to be able to recognise so many of these volunteers at next week’s virtual Volunteers in Sport Awards and I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to all of this year’s recipients.”

The awards will be streamed live each evening from 7 p.m. on the Federation of Irish Sport’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/federationofirishsport/ with the awards schedule listed below:

Tuesday, December 7th: Leinster and Special Recognition Award

Wednesday, December 8th: Munster, Connacht and Special Recognition Award

Thursday, December 9th: Ulster and Outstanding Achievement Award

For more information on the awards, visit http://www.volunteersinsport.ie/.