Galway’s Fiona Murtagh received her Sportswoman of the Month award for June at The Irish Times Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year awards recently.
Murtagh enjoyed unprecedented success in 2025. She received the June Sportswoman of the Month award after her silver medal win at the European Championships in Bulgaria.
It was her first single sculls final at elite level. It was her High-Performance Lead Coach Dominic Casey who suggested making the switch. It proved to be a masterstroke as the Moycullen native capped off the month with another silver medal at the World Cup in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Speaking after her double silver medal success, the 30-year-old admitted she found the change daunting initially, but the support of teammates and a mentality shift gave her the confidence to transition successfully.
“I was really outside my comfort zone, and I had a lot of learning to do but knowing that Dominic had confidence in me brought the confidence out of myself.
“I didn’t know how it was going to go, but I was like, ‘why can’t it go well?’ Honestly, the only time I’m ever on my own is when I’m on the water. The rest of the time I’m surrounded by such a good group of people at the [national rowing] centre.
“I’ve always been used to company in the boat, and I always took such pride in working for someone else, being part of a team. I never really thought about myself, I was doing it to help them, so this has been a complete shift – suddenly I’m just doing it for me,” she said.
Her success did not stop there. Murtagh went on to claim a historic gold medal at the World Championships in Shanghai in September. She finished just 0.03 seconds ahead of Great Britain’s Lauren Henry in a thrilling photo-finish victory.
Murtagh was also one of 12 nominees for the prestigious RTÉ Sportsperson of the Year award, which was won by golfer Rory McIlroy.
