For Enniskillen Royal Boat Club and Bernie Donaghy, the 2026 rowing season has culminated with two impressive feats; two Junior eights racing at the world’s best-known regatta, and three Donaghy children on the race timetable.
For parents who have put in the early hour drives to training and weekends full of spectating that come with having a child who excels at sport, that child making it to the pinnacle of their chosen sport’s competition is the greatest reward for the sweetest investment. For Bernie Donaghy, Henley Royal Regatta brought that reward threefold.
"Every rower - you feel that you know them. Because you know they have such pride in their sport, you know the time they’ve put in and they get to show it on the water.”
Of Bernie’s five children, three have been firmly bit by the rowing bug. “It started with Odhran,” she recalls fondly. All three rowers had been talented at jujitsu, “but that first time in a boat, first time on the water, all three decided rowing was their gig.”
Odhran Donaghy started rowing at 13 years old at Enniskillen Royal Boat Club. 12 years on, Henley Royal Regatta 2026 will be his fourth time racing down the iconic 2,112m course, competing in The Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup and representing Taurus Boat Club, the alumni branch of Oxford Brookes University Boat Club. This year, however, will be his first time racing alongside his two youngest siblings, Cillian and Clodagh.
At 15 years old, Clodagh’s position in the club’s top eight for junior girls is incredibly impressive, especially given that this is her first year sweeping. She’ll be rowing in The Prince Philip Challenge Trophy for junior women’s eights against the best crews in the country, most made up of rowers about to leave school for university. “We had to make a decision; is it going to be rowing or rugby, because she had been selected for rugby under 17. But her first love, psychologically, is being on the water. It's rowing, 100%.”
Clodagh’s had a phenomenal amount of support from the older girls at Enniskillen Royal Boat Club. “They’ve taught her a lot about the maturity and the resilience of rowing.” Bernie’s youngest child has been attending rowing events since she was three years of age to watch her oldest brother compete; her older brother Cillian had a similar introduction to the sport. “Cillian captained the junior 16s at the Irish Championships last year when they won, and he's just seamlessly moved into the junior 18s.”
Both Clodagh and Cillian being in their junior first eights is an understandable point of pride for Bernie, sweetened by the fact that her eldest is racing alongside childhood crewmate Louis Nares.
“Both boys-” Bernie says before she stops herself with a laugh. “They're now men. They're 25, you know, but they're always my boys. But they're now 25 years of age, moving out into full-time working. And to have pre-qualified was just something phenomenal.”
There are two ways into Henley Royal Regatta - through pre-qualification, for crews who have demonstrated a high level of competition in races across the rowing season, or a nail-biting knockout Qualifiers, which takes place a few days before the Regatta begins. Bernie was spared the experience, as all three of her children’s crews managed to pre-qualify in 2026.
“I think once you get off that train, and you cross that bridge, and you see the whole layout of the course... You just see the people, you see the tents. There's just something really uplifting. It's a regatta with the world's best rowing crews, they've traveled from every corner of the earth to come here. You look at all of the rowers, and you're so proud. Every rower - you feel that you know them. Because you know they have such pride in their sport, you know the time they’ve put in and they get to show it on the water.”
For Enniskillen Royal Boat Club, 2026 is the first time they’ve had two Junior eights in the competition, and that brings a huge amount of local pride, and pride in the club itself. Cillian, Clodagh and Odhran have all benefited from the coaching of Irish Olympian Derek Holland. “You know when you hear people talk about the GOAT? The kids have absolute faith. If that man says, ‘We're climbing Kilimanjaro.’ Every child in the two first eights will follow him. He instills belief, but absolute discipline in rowing. There are no guarantees of a seat in a boat with Derek.”
A few years ago, before their competitive rowing careers began, the children were passing through Henley on their way back to Ireland and Derek brought them to look at the Henley course. “We have a photograph of them back then. The spindly legs at 13 years of age, and you look at them now, you can tell the work they've put in.”
“They’re absolute rowing devotees - the only way I could describe the three of them and what rowing has given them. I know they will go anywhere in the world and they'll thrive. The discipline, the whole sense of planning, resilience, not caving at the first hurdle, just getting up, getting back in the boat and going again is just phenomenal.”
Odhran hopes to stay in rowing as a coach, whilst Cillian will row when he pursues medicine at university. Clodagh is already drawing international eyes, and hopes to attend university in America with her rowing. “Between the rowing and the academics, the world is her oyster.”
