THE Belfast boxing community has bid farewell to a stalwart of the Gleann club, Tricia Magennis.
The 42-year-old died on Thursday, June 2 following a battle with cancer, her funeral taking place at St Luke’s Church in Twinbrook yesterday.
Gleann was well represented, and unsurprisingly so given the huge impact she had on the club after getting involved when son Odhran first took up boxing.
In the years that followed, she carried out a number of roles, including as a coach, and formed part of the committee. For Gleann coach Dee Walsh, though, Tricia will always be remembered as the “mother of the club” – and a much-valued friend.
“Tricia first came into the club when Odhran got involved, and she was just the kind of person the kids loved,” he said.
“When we went to America a few years ago, the kids who were running out of money, she’d have been the one helping them out, even ironing the kids’ clothes – if you needed anything, Tricia was the one who looked after everybody.
“She really had a heart of gold.”
It is another body blow for Gleann, two-and-a-half years on from the loss of talented 12-year-old Eoin Hamill, who was a good friend of Tricia Magennis’s son Odhran.
But Walsh says the Gleann family always rally around each other when times are tough.
“That’s one thing about our club.
“Even though sometimes it’s the maddest club in the world, it’s a really tight unit. There’s a really good culture in there, and Tricia played a big part in establishing that.
“Myself, Tricia and a couple of others would’ve always been on the phone talking about the different things that needed done, she had a real enthusiasm for it.
“I’m so gutted she has gone because the stuff we talked about, it’s starting to come to fruition. It’s devastating that Tricia’s not going to be part of it in the future because she played such a big part in building it.
“But Tricia will never be forgotten by anybody at Gleann. She loved the place, and everybody loved her.”
