More than 6,500 runners crossed the finish line at Sunday’s Irish Life Dublin Half Marathon in Phoenix Park, bringing the 2026 Irish Life Dublin Race Series to a close.

Raheny Shamrock’s James Hyland won the men’s race in 1:08:52, producing a strong final mile to pull clear of Irish international mountain runners Eddie O’Connor and Matthew McConnell.

Meghan Ryan of Dundrum South Dublin took the women’s title.

The Half Marathon represented the third and final event in this year’s Race Series following the Irish Life Fingal 10K in July and the Irish Life Frank Duffy 10 Mile in August.

All three events sold out in advance.

Sunday’s race also served as an important staging post towards the 45th Irish Life Dublin Marathon, which will take place through the streets of the capital on Sunday, October 25.

The wider Dublin Marathon platform continues to demonstrate significant value beyond participation numbers alone.

More than €2.5 million has already been raised through the event’s 2026 charity programme, delivered with official charity partner realbuzz and now involving more than 150 Irish and international charities.

The combination of the three-race series, charity programme and Marathon itself has increasingly turned what was once principally a single October event into a sporting platform extending across much of the year.

 

Sport for Business Perspective

Thousands of people don’t merely watch the Irish Life Dublin Race Series. They register, train for weeks or months, download information, engage with event communications, arrive at the venue and spend hours participating in something carrying the sponsor’s name.

That creates a very different relationship from conventional sports sponsorship.

Irish Life now has a sequence stretching from the Fingal 10K through the Frank Duffy 10 Mile and Half Marathon before culminating in the Dublin Marathon.

The commercial value therefore lies not only in race-day branding but in the entire journey towards the start line.

The €2.5 million already generated for charity this year gives the property measurable social impact alongside participation and commercial value, while the involvement of more than 150 charities creates another substantial network through which the event reaches communities.

 

 

 

Irish Life, the Dublin Marathon Group and Athletics Ireland are all full members of Sport for Business. Dublin City Council are the official partners of our Community Sport and Participation coverage.

If you would like to be part of the Sport for Business community and see your organisation in our content, on our stages, and in the conversation happening every day around the commercial world of Irish Sport, email us today and let’s see what is possible.

Image Credit: Dublin Marathon Group

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