Rachel Lally: The Irish teacher turned pro boxer fights for a place in the world top five
Irish boxer Rachel Lally is set to face South African Wendy Gcado in Dubai on Saturday.
Should the 30-year-old win the fight, she will break into the top five of the female super middleweight rankings less than a year after combining professional boxing with her career as a teacher in the
United Arab Emirates
(UAE).
From Co Mayo, Lally took-up the sport in the lead up to the 2012 London Olympics. The Irish team went on to win four boxing medals at those games, with
Katie Taylor
's gold sparking a surge in interest among girls and women.
'Women's boxing was really coming up,' says Lally, who trained at the Golden Gloves Club in her hometown of Belmullet.
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She was 'in a tough place physically and mentally' when she started out and was 'unhappy in my body', but a year of boxing marked a turnaround for Lally.
At 17 she became an under-18 national champion, with several girls from her home club also winning titles.
Rachel Lally took up boxing in the lead up to the 2012 London Olympics, where Irish fighters, including Katie Taylor, secured four medals. Photograph: Hannah McCarthy
Lally had been due to fight for the same title in the National Stadium in Dublin the previous year, but pulled out after learning a close friend had died by suicide the day before the bout. Within an 18-month period, she lost three teenage friends in Co Mayo to suicide.
'It was just a really horrible time because we had absolutely no mental health facilities,' she says. Boxing became an important outlet for her as she coped with those tragedies.
Rachel Lally has been doing 4am jogs before starting work as a teacher. Photograph: Hannah McCarthy
However, the Leaving Certificate, followed by college and then a heavy caseload as a teacher in London, left Lally with little time to box after earning her junior title.
'I just wasn't prioritising my health at all,' she said.
After moving to Dubai to work as a teacher in 2021 and joining a local boxing gym, a coach encouraged her to take part in amateur fights including an event for St Patrick's Day alongside other Irish boxers.
Lally says the calibre of training facilities in Dubai is higher than in Ireland but they are much more expensive to access.
'I paid €2 a night to train [in Mayo] with people volunteering their time,' she says, adding that it is difficult 'to keep gyms open in small towns and there could be 20 kids in a tiny little room'.
In Dubai Lally is 'training with professional guys, sparring two or three times a week and people come from all over the Emirates' to the gym.
Rachel Lally says the calibre of training facilities in Dubai is higher than in Ireland but more expensive to access. Photograph: Hannah McCarthy
However, she says fighters 'can only reach a certain level without individual sponsorship'. The construction firm Rinrow, Capital Sky Limited and meal prep company, Meals On Me, have helped fund the cost of Lally's training camp before her fight on Saturday.
In the lead up to her bout against Gcado, Lally has been doing 4am jogs before starting work as a teacher and then undertaking a gruelling after-work regime of sparring, strength training and one-to-one coaching sessions.
'That means no days off,' she says.
Lally says that when she faced Elene Sikmashvili from Georgia and Cameroon's Marie Victorine Onguene Tsimi in professional fights, theirs were the only female bouts on the card.
'All my last bouts have been very tough, there hasn't been an easy fight,' she says. 'But I'm 30 now, I don't have time to do fights that aren't really challenging for me.'
When she eventually hangs up her boxing gloves, Lally hopes to work with a programme that empowers girls and helps with their mental health through boxing.
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Irish Times
18 minutes ago
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Football quarter-finalists laid bare and what else we learned from the GAA weekend
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41 minutes ago
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Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info Eamonn Fitzmaurice reckons there is 'something ominous' about the way Dublin are grinding out results as they face into a crunch All-Ireland quarter-final encounter with Tyrone next weekend. And Fitzmaurice says he 'wouldn't be surprised' if there was a shock in either the Meath versus Galway game or Monaghan's encounter with Donegal. The former Kerry All-Ireland winning manager also believes 'team to beat' Armagh is 'the right game' for the Kingdom after last year's All-Ireland semi-final defeat by Kieran McGeeney's side. It was already known that Kerry would face Armagh, but this morning's draw threw up a huge tie in the shape of Dublin against Tyrone. Tyrone comfortably defeated Dublin in the League earlier this year, but Dessie Farrell's side are coming off back to back Championship wins over Cork and Derry, while they also defeated Galway in Salthill with a last gasp Tom Lahiff point. Surprisingly, it's the first time they've won back to back games since February 22, when they followed up a one point Division 1 win against Kerry in Tralee by comfortably disposing of Derry at Croke Park. Dublin also left Con O'Callaghan out of last weekend's victory over Cork, and didn't even call on him when it got tight. O'Callaghan was forced off injured in the win over Galway, missed the Armagh defeat and returned to spark Dublin to victory over Derry. Speaking on RTE radio after the draw, Fitzmaurice said: 'The Tyrone/Dublin game is obviously going to be a massive game. The last league game, Tyrone beat Dublin above in Healy Park and played very well. 'It's kind of a fresh Tyrone team coming in against a Dublin team that had a couple of weeks (of games). 'Dessie took the risk of keeping Con back last weekend, a key player, and it will probably pay off for them now, because the Dubs with him are obviously a different team. 'There is something ominous about the Dubs at the moment. They are grinding it out. They are showing a different side to themselves, but they are getting the job done. 'Tyrone are coming fresh to Croke Park as well and they have forwards that are capable of doing a lot of damage up there.' Speaking about the Kerry/Armagh game, Fitzmaurice continued: 'It's a game that certainly the Kerry players and management would have been waiting for all season. Maybe they wouldn't have expected to have gone through the preliminary quarter-final. 'They have a few injuries and everything else, but there are no excuses from here on in. 'Armagh are obviously the team to beat at the moment, but that opposition is right for Kerry and certainly the way they played (against Armagh) in the league game in the middle of March, it kind of inspired them to go to new levels. 'I'd be hoping from a Kerry perspective that it will be something similar next weekend.' Fitzmaurice says that Donegal could have done with a week off. Jim McGuinness side have played more Championship games that anyone else their year. This weekend's encounter with Monaghan will be their ninth, while their opponents will be playing just their sixth game. Donegal, Kerry, Galway and Dublin are all facing into their third game in two weeks. 'In some circumstances I think it is (a disadvantage), but not for Kerry to be honest,' said Fitzmaurice. "I think they needed the game, particularly with the way they played against Meath the previous weekend. 'They were better off having a game and flushing it out of their systems and getting ready for next weekend. 'Some of the other teams, Donegal in particular, could possibly have done with a weekend off, considering the amount of games that they've played recently. 'I actually think the Cavan game was good for Kerry and hopefully it will have them in a good position.' Donegal defeated Monaghan in the Ulster quarter-final back in April, but there were only two points in it at the end. 'Gabriel Bannigan (Monaghan manager), after that game, he was very disappointed with how Monaghan had played in the first half,' said Fitzmaurice. 'They were six down at half-time, but they played very well in the second half. Again, you have a team coming with energy versus a team that are slightly fatigued, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a shock somewhere along the line between those two games in particular (Donegal v Monaghan and Meath v Galway).'
