For the last few months, I have been keeping an eye on the results of the 10-mile races in Ireland. You'll often see results posted on social media but it's not so obvious how big the races are and how they all compare to each other.
With that in mind, I collected the data and here are the top ten 10-mile races in Ireland for the Spring of 2024.
As can be seen from the chart, the John Treacy Dungarvan 10-mile road race was the largest 10-miler in Ireland for the Spring of 2024 and by some margin. Before I did this exercise, I knew that the Dungarvan race was one of the biggest but I was a bit surprised to see just how far it was ahead of the rest.
The Trim 10-mile was in second place and what's surprising here was that it was actually held on the same day as Dungarvan! I suspect if they picked another date then their numbers would have been even bigger.
As can be seen from the chart, Bundoran and Derry are in 3rd and 4th places with the remaining six tailing off from about the 1000 mark.
10-mile races in Cork... If we were to go back 15 years or so, the scene for the Spring 10-milers in Munster was somewhat different. Ballycotton was king with Dungarvan second, Mallow third and the Kilnaboy 10 in Co Clare fourth.
A lot has changed since then and one of the biggest changes was when the Ballycotton 10-mile was run for the last time in 2017. With the demise of Ballycotton, the Dungarvan race has now moved into it's place as the premier Spring 10-miler in Ireland.
The chart above shows the numbers for the Spring 10-milers in Cork since 2017.
As previously mentioned, 2017 was the last outing for Ballycotton and both the Mallow and Cobh 10-milers grew substantially the next year in 2018.
In 2019, Mallow hit its zenith with roughly 1500 finishers while Cobh eased back with the Kinsale 10-mile starting up in February of that year.
When looking at the numbers, it's worth noting that both the Clondulane and Duhallow 10-milers were also in the mix pre-2020.
When the races restarted in 2022 after the pandemic, the numbers for Mallow had really taken a dip and dropped by about a third. Compared to 2019, Cobh managed to hold it's own while Kinsale eased back.
If we look at 2023 and 2024, it's a story of Mallow staying about the same and both Kinsale and Cobh growing.
If we go back a decade then Mallow was certainly the second largest Spring 10-miler in Cork after Ballycotton and by some margin. In 2024, it's now a three way race for the top Spring 10-miler in Cork.
Caveat... Note that this post is about the top 10-milers In Ireland for the Spring of 2024 i.e. February, March & April. There will be more 10-milers coming up in the Autumn and it'll be interesting to see what the chart looks like by the end of the year.
