Patsy Joyce already making a name for himself in the ring

The Mullingar man has his sights set on LA. 

Patsy Joyce of Ireland celebrates his victory with former boxer Tony Bellew after their Men's 55kg quarter final bout against Mirazizbek Mirzakhalilov of Uzbekistan during the World Boxing Championships 2025 at M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool. Pic: Ben McShane/Sportsfile

Sportsfile photographer Ben McShane took a superb shot of Patsy Joyce at last month’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, just as the 19-year old southpaw was walking from the arena after his 55kg quarter-final win.

A beaming Joyce had just secured himself a medal having seen off Mirazizbek Mirzakhalilov of Uzbekistan and clapping him on the back as he exited the stage at the M&S Bank Arena was former WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew.

A nephew of 2008 Olympian John Joe Joyce, the youngster from Mullingar is a fan of 2020 Olympic medallist Aidan Walsh, and he has people like Billy Joe Saunders sharing his content and bigging him up on social media.

Big names all. Liverpool was a big step in writing his own in lights.

Joyce made the podium the hard way. He beat Korea’s Jaeyong Shin, Bulgaria's Olympian and European medalist Javier Ibanez Diaz, and then the Uzbek Asian champ, before falling to Spain’s Rafael Serrano, a Paris Olympian and European bronze medallist, in the semis.

It was a standout showing in what was a superb team performance by the Irish in the UK. Joyce went there as the youngest of the 17-strong team, but he leaned on a font of unmatchable experience and success in Kellie Harrington.

The two-time Olympian has since confirmed her intention to return to international competition, but she was still operating in a sort of limbo at the Worlds where she had travelled as a non-competing team member.

“I'm chatting to Kellie the whole time,” said Joyce. “She's dead on. She calmed my nerves before the fight against Spain as well. She came into the dressing room and she was saying ‘just enjoy it, don't take it serious, just enjoy it’. Calmed me down.” 

Harrington’s influence was all the greater for the doubts Joyce had brought to the UK.

Losing his first fight at the prestigious Strandja tournament last spring left him wondering if he actually had what it took to compete at the elite level and he still wasn’t fully steady on his feet when the Irish team went to Sheffield for a pre-Worlds training camp.

Some of the top nations were in the Steel City at the same time. Joyce was worried the experience would be “torture” but he beat most of his opponents in sparring and that instilled the confidence needed for what followed.

There were maybe 50 people, family and friends, waiting for him in Mullingar when he arrived home. The one problem with that was his heart had been set on a 4-in-1 from the local Chinese which had shut for the evening by the time the homecoming ended.

The time off that followed gave him plenty of opportunity to sit down to any amount of rice, chips, curry sauce and chicken balls, so much so that he was terrified to step on the scales on his return to training.

He needn’t have worried.

Anything extra fell off again soon enough and he finds himself now just weeks out from the European U23s in Budapest where he will continue on a road that he is determined will lead him to Los Angeles and the 2028 Games.

“I'm only young. You get more mature. You get more man strength as well. You're 23, 24, that's when you're peaking. So [when] LA comes, fingers crossed. More tournaments before that. You get more experience. You get better and better. Every tournament you get better.

“Hopefully I'll be on the plane to LA.”