Jon Mackey is the head coach at Red Star Kickboxing. Jon started his training in 1987 under Thomas Carthy at the Irish School of Taekwon-Do in Dublin. Jon served as the Irish team coach for Kickboxing Ireland from 2014 to 2019. In those five years, Jon oversaw some of the best international results ever recorded by the Irish national team within the discipline of Light Contact kickboxing, most notably beating Russia to the top of the medal table in the 2016 world championships. Jon is currently the national Director of Coaching for Kickboxing Ireland. To date, Jon has trained national, European and world gold medalists in both Taekwon-Do (ITF) and Kickboxing (WAKO). Jon opened Red Star in 2004 and since its inception the club has developed a formidable reputation on the tournament circuit.
Professionally, Jon is employed as High Performance Director for Canoeing Ireland. Through his role at Canoeing Ireland, Jon works closely with high performance athletes, liaising with the Olympic Federation of Ireland and the Sport Ireland High Performance Unit.
Jon’s philosophy is centred around the importance of sport in young people’s lives:
“Sport is a powerful tool for developing important attributes in young people. Attributes such as goal setting, resilience (grit), movement ability and confidence, motivation and self discipline. Kickboxing is an amazing sport that has so much to offer young people, my role as a coach is to assist in the development of these attributes as best I can – sport can take you around the world in more ways than one – embrace it, fall in love with it!”
Jon’s qualification profile is below:
Masters degree in Coaching & Performance Science UCD (1st class honours)
Strength & Conditioning Coach
Advanced Diploma in Executive Coaching and Leadership
Coaching certificates with Sport Ireland Coaching in three sports
Sport Ireland accredited Coach Developer
Currently studying a Doctoral degree in Elite Performance in Sport at DCU (2022)
Jon’s interests revolve around research in coaching, skill acquisition and decision making, exercise science, physiology and leadership.
Athletes with International titles coached by Jon Mackey:
Amy Wall – European Olympic Gold Medalist Full Contact -60kg (European Olympic Games Krakow, Poland 2023) Current WAKO World Senior Champion at -60kg (Full Contact)/European bronze medalist and European Olympic Games team member for 2023
Lauren Bradshaw – European ITF Taekwon-Do Champion Bulgaria 2012/IUTF Open European Championships best over all junior 2011/ITF World Championships Bronze Estonia 2012/International Irish Championships Gold/ITF European Colour belt champion Croatia 2009/World Taekwon-Do Festival Korea 2010 Gold/Kickboxing Ireland National Champion 2012/ITF Ireland Open Gold/ITF Ireland Open best over all junior female 2012/Unified ITF Taekwon-Do World Champion London 2013/Over all best junior female competitor London 2013/WAKO European Champion Poland 2013. WAKO World Championships 2014 Rimini Italy Bronze. Senior and Junior National Kickboxing Champion 2015. Irish Open Champion 2015/WAKO European champion 2015 San Sebastian/WAKO World silver medalist Dublin 2015/WAKO European Champion Slovenia 2016/WAKO World Champion Hungary 2017/WAKO World Champion (Kick Light) Hungary 2017.
Robyn McDonnell – 4 times Irish Kickboxing Champion/WAKO European Silver medalist Macedonia 2017/WAKO World bronze medalist Italy 2018 -70kg/WAKO European Champion -70kg Light Contact 2019 Hungary/WAKO European Champion -70kg Kick Light 2019 Hungary/WAKO World Cup Gold medalist (Irish Open 2019).
Eliza Bluma – 3 times Irish kickboxing champion/WAKO World Champion -55kg Dublin 2016/WAKO European Champion -55kg Macedonia 2017.
Dayna Walsh – 6 times Irish kickboxing champion -50kg/WAKO World bronze medalist Macedonia 2017/WAKO European bronze medalist Italy 2018 -50kg/WAKO European Silver medalist -55kg 2019 Hungary
Jordan Doran – WAKO World champion Dublin 2016/WAKO World Champion Italy 2018/WAKO World Champion (Kick Light) Italy 2018.
Brendan Kenny – National kickboxing Champion (Junior) 2014/National Kickboxing champion (senior) 2017/WAKO Vice World Champion Rimini Italy 2014/Irish Open Champion 2013/Irish Open Champion 2014/Hungarian World Cup Gold 2016/Dutch Open Gold 2016 – all at -79kg
