New push to enable Northern Irish athletes compete for 32-county Ireland

Friends Of Irish Athletics have been campaigning for a derogation to the rule in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement for a number of years but so far, their entreaties have fallen on deaf ears.

Ireland's Ciara Mageean celebrates.

An Irish athletics voluntary group has launched an impassioned plea to remove the anomaly whereby Ciara Mageean was not representing Portaferry and Down when she became European 1500m champion in 2024, and more recently, Nick Griggs was not running for his home town of Cookstown in Tyrone when winning the European U23 cross-country title and leading Ireland to team gold in December.

World Athletics’ application of its political boundary rule since its adoption in 1934 means that track and field and all running athletes from Northern Ireland are officially representing the Republic of Ireland at European and World Championships.