By 1956, the Falls Road boxer held both the junior and senior Irish flyweight titles and a place on the Irish team at the Melbourne 1956 Summer Olympics was assured. ""We were away for six weeks and went to San Francisco and then stopped off in Honolulu on the way to Australia ... was very young at the time and at just eighteen I was considered to be the baby of the team. The athlete Maeve Kyle looked after us all and it was the most successful set of Irish boxers ever to go to an Olympics as we won four bronze medals. But it was such an honour to be picked and I was so overjoyed to be representing Ireland on such a stage.""