Paul Kelly will keep up the good fight until he lands his mitts on the Irish title he so badly craves.
The Twin Towns boxer has been in three Irish finals in his time, but has lost them all.
This week, Kelly is in Boston with the Donegal Boxing Team as they prepare to face the Boston Boxing Academy in a major tournament in the Teachers Union Hall on St Patrick’s Day; the event having been moved from its original March 16 date.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to get to box in Boston on Paddy’s week,” Kelly says.
“There aren’t too many who can say that. It’s not often you can say you’ve been in Boston, never mind get a chance to box in a show like this.”
The Donegal Creameries employee was beaten by Crumlin’s Tony Glynn at the National Senior Championships before Christmas.
He says: “I put a lot of hard work into the seniors, but that’s the way it goes.
“They didn’t go to plan. I took a bit of time off and then put the name down for this and it was back down to work again.”
In December 2014, Kelly took on Ryan Dervan from Loughrea in a National Intermediate final. The bout was live on TG4 and Kelly looked to have done enough – but Dervan got the verdict.
Kelly says: “I thought I had him well beat. So many people were saying that too.
“That made it harder and it was hard to get back from that. A loss like that is hard to get the head around. No matter how hard you try, not everything goes for you.”
Now, though, Kelly, who has represented Donegal before, is Stateside with a 15-strong team in Boston.
He says: “Bar winning the Irish title that I want, this is the next best opportunity for me.”
And he vows that he’ll never give up on his quest for that Irish crown.
He says: “I’ll never stop until I get the Irish title. When you’re at it this long, you can’t give up.”
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