{"id":1132598,"date":"2026-08-05T21:33:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T21:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1132598\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T21:33:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T21:33:22","slug":"northern-irelands-commonwealth-games-athletes-honoured-at-homecoming-event-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1132598\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland\u2019s Commonwealth Games athletes honoured at homecoming event \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Northern Ireland\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/commonwealth-games\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/commonwealth-games\/\">Commonwealth Games<\/a> athletes have been honoured with a homecoming reception at Stormont.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It comes after the region\u2019s athletes scooped <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/northern-ireland\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/northern-ireland\/\">Northern Ireland<\/a>\u2019s second highest haul of medals at the games in Glasgow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Gold medallists Gary Kelly and Adam McKeown (bowls) and boxer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/boxing\/2026\/08\/01\/michaela-walsh-settles-for-silver-after-defeat-in-featherweight-final-at-commonwealth-games\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/boxing\/2026\/08\/01\/michaela-walsh-settles-for-silver-after-defeat-in-featherweight-final-at-commonwealth-games\/\">Jon McConnell<\/a> were among those congratulated by Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons at the event on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In total Northern Ireland athletes won 16 medals \u2013 three gold, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/athletics\/2026\/07\/29\/kate-oconnor-wins-heptathlon-gold-at-commonwealth-games\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/athletics\/2026\/07\/29\/kate-oconnor-wins-heptathlon-gold-at-commonwealth-games\/\">including Kate O\u2019Connor<\/a> (heptathlon), four silver and nine bronze.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It is the most medals won since the 2022 games in Birmingham (18).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Lyons said he wanted to reflect the pride felt across Northern Ireland for the achievements of athletes across so many sports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cQualifying in and of itself is an incredible achievement and so many of our athletes achieved personal bests, got further than they thought that they would and some were medallists as well, so that was an absolutely fantastic games and a real buzz across Northern Ireland and a real willingness to get behind our athletes,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThat\u2019s why I am hosting this event tonight so that we can recognise their success and celebrate it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland\u2019s Commonwealth Games athletes have been honoured with a homecoming reception at Stormont. It comes after the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1132599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[18527,1144,16,15],"class_list":["post-1132598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-commonwealth-games","tag-northern-ireland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117045048516822707","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1132598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1132599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1132598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1132598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1132598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}