The 2025 Colours Rowing Boat Races will take place on the River Liffey through Dublin City Centre on Saturday, March 22nd.
The annual event, which includes four races in total, sees crews from Trinity College Dublin and UCD race head-to-head over 2 km upstream and under eight bridges from the starting line at O’Connell Bridge to the finish at Victoria Quay.
UCD’s Senior Men’s Eight seek to make it four Gannon Cup wins in a row and match Trinity’s total of 37 wins. The UCD Senior Men’s Eight are Back Row (L-R): Paul Flood, Daire Lynch, Dach Murray, Ross Mason Front Row (L-R): Eoin McGrath, David Ross-Chu, Rhian Nelson (cox), Andrew O’Leary, Ciaran Conway. The Olympic bronze medalist Daire Lynch will row in 7 seat for UCD Senior Men’s crew.
The races will include the 75th edition of the Gannon Cup, which has been raced by Senior Men’s Eights from UCD and Trinity since 1947 with the exception of four years, two in the 1950s (1957 and 1958) and two more recently due to Covid restrictions (2020 and 2021).
This year, UCD is seeking to make it four wins in a row in both the Gannon Cup and also in the Senior Women’s Eights race the Corcoran Cup. If successful in the Gannon Cup, UCD will level the men’s overall series at 37 wins each. To date, Trinity have secured 37 Gannon Cup wins and UCD have 36. There has been one dead heat in 1950.
The Corcoran Cup was originally a Senior Women’s Coxed Four event, but evolved into an Eights race in 1993, due to increased participation by women in rowing throughout the country at this time. UCD has recorded 26 wins in total while Trinity has 17.
Grace Healy, who was named as the country’s Up and Coming Rower of the Year in 2024, is set to row in the Trinity Women’s Eight and the UCD Senior Men’s crew will feature Daire Lynch, the Olympic bronze medallist, in the 7 seat.
Trinity Senior Women’s Eight (L-R) Izzy Howley, Jen Forde, Grace Healy, María Mezquita García-Poggio, Ashla Copeland (cox), Addy Telzrow, Imogen Cooney, Caoimhe Keller, Sarah Tavey. Grace Healy, the country’s Up and Coming Rower of the Year for 2024, will feature in the Trinity Women’s Eight. Trinity are seeking to stop UCD’s Senior Women’s Eight from securing fourth Corcoran Cup win in a row
Lynch, 26 and from Clonmel in Co Tipperary, won bronze for Ireland in the Men’s Double Sculls with Philip Doyle at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The two also won bronze in the same event at the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Belgrade. Lynch, who remains part of the Irish rowing squad, studied economics at Yale University in Connecticut in the US, but is now studying medicine in UCD.
UCD Senior Women’s Eight (L-R) Alison Daly, Eimear Muldoon, Sarah Butler, Dervila O’Brien, Neasa Farrell (cox), Tara Phelan, Aoife Feeley, Niamh Campbell, Lauryn Roche
The Colours Boat Races began in 1947 when the Gannon Cup was presented in memory of UCD Boat Club Captain Ciaran Gannon who was killed while on active service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Burma in 1944.
Since then, the list of races has expanded to include the Corcoran Cup in 1980, the Dan Quinn Shield for Novice Men’s Eights in 2004 and the Sally Moorhead Trophy for Novice Women’s Eights in 2005.
Trinity has won the last four Novice Men’s Eight races and UCD has won two of the last three Novice Women’s Eight races in 2022 and last year.
2025 Race Schedule
Colours Boat Races: River Liffey, Dublin, Saturday, March 22.
- Sally Moorhead Trophy (Novice Women’s Eights) - 3.30pm
- Dan Quinn Shield (Novice Men’s Eights) - 4pm
- Corcoran Cup (Women’s Senior Eights) - 4.30pm
- Gannon Cup (Men’s Senior Eights) - 5pm
Official names of the clubs involved in the Colours Boat races:
- University College Dublin Boat Club (UCDBC)
- Dublin University Boat Club (DUBC - the men’s rowing club of Trinity College Dublin)
- University College Dublin Ladies Boat Club (UCDLBC)
- Dublin University Ladies Boat Club (DULBC)
