Anna Moore

First time I saw her boxing...

was in the National Stadium in 2001.

Ireland were boxing Denmark, and herself and Alana Murphy from Belfast, they had a contest at halftime.

You know, sorry, Ciarán, a lot of clubs were nervous of taking females into their clubs.

they probably wouldn't have, we say, a female coach there at the time, you know.

This is when they were trying to show what female boxing, that it could go, that it wasn't anything to be frightened of for girls, and it was outstanding.

And they were nervous.

It's no good saying they weren't.

And I'd say mostly that would have been concern for clubs, you know.

And I remember saying to Sadie Duffy, who was on the committee with me at the time,

But Katie never let it hold her back.

Even at the beginning when she went away for the first maybe one or two, her dad paid for that and brought her away.

if this is what female boxing is about, well, I'm in.

Because in the beginning, I was nervous because of breast cancer and those kind of things, you know.

And then as she progressed to Europeans and Worlds, then at that stage female boxing was in Ireland.

And

Katie would actually be the only one.

I went away numerous times to Worlds and Europeans.

But at that time, it would be just Katie on her own in the beginning.

And it was just you just to watch her.