The Donegal Sports Star Awards celebrated the winners of the inaugural awards in 1976, as well as the 40th anniversary of the 1985 winners, at the launch of the 2025 awards in the Mount Errigal Hotel on Wednesday night.
The winners from 1985 were remembered on the 40th anniversary of their successes as has been done for the past decade at the launch but, in a special year for the awards, the winners from 1976 were also celebrated on the 50th anniversary of the inaugural awards, which was also held in the Milford Inn.
The first Donegal Sports Star Awards were held on Friday, 26th November 1976, where the special guest was the Olympic Gold Medallist Ronnie Delaney and MC for the evening was Fr. Michael Sweeney.
Special medallions were designed for the 18 winners in the seventeen categories in the inaugural year of the Awards.
The 1985 Donegal Sports Star Awards also took place in the Milford Inn and that was on Friday, 8th November, when athlete Danea Herron of Finn Valley AC became the first female to win the Overall award.
Now living in Derry, Herron continues to participate at Masters Level and is involved in coaching.
Danea spoke to Highland’s Chris Ashmore at the launch of the 50th edition of the awards which will take place in the Mount Errigal Hotel on January 30th…
Declan Kerr is among the chief organisers of the Donegal Sports Star Awards and, at the launch on Wednesday, he spoke to Highland’s Chris Ashmore to look back on the 1976 winners…
Declan also spoke about the 1985 award winners with Chris…
