A busy season for the North West Shotokan Karate Club saw fourteen students selected to represent Ireland, as part of the Irish Shotokan Karate Union, at the WUKF European Karate Championships in Sheffield.
The prestigious event attracted some 1200 competitors of all ages to test themselves against the elite athletes in the sport from all across Europe.
The ISKU team was led by Chief Instructor and tournament referee, Sensei Raymond Shannon, and Head Coach and Team Manager Mandy McNulty, accompanied by assistant coaches Ciara Dullaghan, Emer Dullaghan and Eathan O’Donnell.
The ISKU team competitors were Emma Ellis, Eimear Lafferty, Saoirse Kelly, Isobel Walsh, Laura Browne, Elaine Dullaghan, Stephen John Carlin, Adam Byrne, Kyle Gamble, Dillon O’Loughlin, Sloan O’Donnell, Emer Dullaghan, Ciara Dullaghan and Andrew Shannon. 
The competition took place over four days, from Thursday 17th October to Sunday 20th October, at the English Institute of Sport’s spectacular new arena on the outskirts of Sheffield.
At the opening ceremony on Thursday the President of the WUKF, Mr Peter Allen, delivered a welcoming address to the large gathering, who were then entertained by the South Yorkshire Police Brass Band, the Active Dance Troup and a solo piper. 
The parade of competitors, coaches and judges, showed particularly large contingents from Romania, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Portugal and of course the host country, England, among many other national teams.
Friday saw the kata events get underway, and with large numbers of competitors in many of the categories. Emma Ellis, Eimear Lafferty, Saoirse Kelly, Isobel Walsh and Stephen John Carlin all competed in the children’s individual events.
The high standard of skills at this level was soon evident and personal best performances saw Emma, Eimear and Isobel winning through to the semi-final in their respective categories.
The cadets were next to take to the mats for their individual kata, with Laura Browne, Elaine Dullaghan, Adam Byrne and Dillon O’Loughlin representing the ISKU.
Elaine won through several tough elimination rounds to reach the semi-final stage in the girls 15-17 years group. Sloan O’Donnell, Andrew Shannon and Emer Dullaghan all competed in the Junior kata competition and again personal best performances saw Emer and Andrew qualify through the tough elimination rounds to the final 12.
Andrew and Emer also competed in the Senior category, as did Ciara Dullaghan. Andrew equalled his previous performance reaching the semi-final stage, while Emer’s fantastic performance saw her advance to the finals.
A busy day continued with the kumite team events for cadets, juniors and seniors. Sloan O’Donnell, along with colleagues from the UKF team, fought through the tough elimination rounds to win a bronze medal in the Shobu sanbon team kumite.
The senior female team rotation event also brought success. After fighting their way through the elimination stages, sisters Emer and Ciara Dullaghan along with Laura McGlinchey from the UKF, also won bronze medals.
At Cadet level, Elaine Dullaghan emulated her sisters’ success when she and fellow ISKU team-mate Laura Browne were joined by Ciara Wyse from Cork as they battled through the elimination rounds and were narrowly beaten in the Semi Final of the team rotation, bringing home bronze medals.
This female cadet team was not finished, however, as they competed in the team sanbon kumite also, adding yet another bronze medal to the team’s tally. It was an exciting end to a busy day of first-class competition.
On Saturday the atmosphere in the arena intensified as the individual fighting events got underway.
There was no place here for the faint-hearted with the very best fighters in Europe on the mats.
The international stage and huge audience did not intimidate the students, however, who rose to the challenge and performed exceptionally well.
Stephen John Carlin, Sloan O’Donnell, Kyle Gamble and Ciara Dullaghan all fought hard but did not progress to the medal stages, nor did Emma Ellis, who despite being ill on Friday afternoon, showed real determination and character just by insisting on competing!
Adam Byrne fought doggedly in his category (Male Cadets age 15-17) only being defeated after extra time, while Laura Browne also fought skilfully and won through to the second round in the Female Cadets.
In the Girls age 13-14 category, Isobel Walsh came out fighting and scored impressively to win through to the second round before losing out to the eventual runner-up in the contest; Eimear Lafferty was unlucky to be defeated by a very strong Romanian fighter who went on to win the gold medal in this category.
It was Saoirse Kelly who raised everyone’s spirits with a fantastic display of skills to reach the semi-final stage and lift the bronze medal for the Irish team.
Elaine Dullaghan also was more than equal to the challenge of the strong international field in her category: she had to fight her way through several elimination rounds to reach the medal stage of the event, and showed her usual combination of grit and skills to win a fantastic individual bronze medal to add to her team awards.
The biggest smiles and cheers of the day came when Dillon O’Loughlin won through his tough fights to the finals and guaranteed silver medal for the ISKU, a tremendous achievement at this level of competition.
Sunday was finals day and the NWSKU students were very proud to be representing their country in several of the events.
It was wonderful to see the ISKU featuring so often on the winners’ podiums, with the tricolour raised to the cheers of all the Irish teams and supporters present.
The final medal tally for the ISKU was an amazing 11 bronze and one silver medal. Each ISKU competitor at this event gave 100% commitment on the mats, and each and every medal was hard-earned.
All of the students who travelled to Sheffield have taken home the tremendous experience of testing their karate skills and their character in a tough international arena.
Each of them demonstrated their high level of skills as well great courage and resilience in the highly-competitive environment.
They were all a great credit to their Club, their Association and their team manager, Mandy McNulty who would like to thank the students, their families, and friends as well as the local community for their continued support which contributes so much to this success.