Eimear Breathnach is the President of Paralympics Ireland and will be leading the organisation toward the 2024 Paris Paralympics.

She was a promising athlete and preparing for her leaving cert at the age of 17 when she broke her neck in a diving accident.

After recovering and adjusting to life in a wheelchair at the National Rehabilitation Hospital she returned to school, secured her Leaving and completed a degree in Commerce at UCD.

A working life in insurance was complemented by an international Table Tennis career where she competed for Team Ireland at the Beijing and London Games.

After London, she retired from competing and was elected as Chair of the newly formed Paralympic Athletes Commission. She was elected to the Board of Paralympics Ireland in 2016 and as President for a four-year term in May of 2021.

See who else has been named on the list alongside Eimear Breathnach by clicking on the image below.

 

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See who else has been included so far on the list for 2023

 

 

This is the 11th edition of our Sport for Business listing of 50 Women of Influence in Irish Sport.

Read more about the list and nominate who you think should be a part of it in 2023.

We are proud to publish the list in partnership with AIG, an organisation that has pledged its commitment to equality in its partnerships with Gaelic Games, Tennis, Golf, and more, for whom “Effort is Equal” and with whom we have ambitious plans to extend the reach of this annual celebration of the Women who are making a difference.

This year’s list will be drawn as before from the worlds of leadership, partnership, storytelling, and performance.

We began this journey in 2013 when challenged that we would never be able to produce a list of twenty Influential Women in Irish Sport. The 20 stretched to 30, then 40 and 50 and it still does not do justice to the talent that is out there.

This year once more, to keep things fresh we will step up again, raising the number of new entrants to at least 40 percent of fresh names from last year.

It will be the hardest part to have some names replaced but if it was too easy it would be of less value.

The list we will build over the coming weeks is a snapshot of those women who are making a mark on how sport is played, consumed, grown, and delivered.

They are part of making the role of women in sport unexceptional by being exceptional in what they do.Â