Mayo teen wins Irish snooker title
Dermot Kelly with SBI chairman John Tobin and SBI President Jim Leacy who presented the awards and the perpetual cup.
Snooker: In what is surely one of the most meteoric rises in Irish sport, a Mayo teenager has gone from playing his first competitive game less than two years ago to winning the All-Ireland U18 Snooker Championship and becoming the number one ranked player for his age in the country.
Dermot Kelly, a native of Killawalla near Westport, won the SBI National 18’s Championship on Sunday last, June 7, when beating Longford’s Joe Shannon in a closely-fought final played in Carlow. Kelly took the deciding frame in a best of five encounter and also shot the highest break (63) of the weekend also.
The Mayo youngster was rightly considered as the player to beat entering the tournament as he had won three of the four U18 ranking events already played this season. It’s also fair to say that his promise was recognised early when as an U16 competitor, he won the very first national tournament he entered in October 2024.
Dermot was a member of the Ireland U18 team that took part in the European Snooker Championships in Spain earlier this year and he has also qualified to play at the Home Internationals in Leeds in August this year.
Along the way he has also enjoyed great success on the pool table and was part of Mayo’s All-Ireland U23 winning team in 2024 and the men's team that won the All-Ireland junior ‘B’ championship in 2025.
