Jon Mackey is the head coach at Red Star Kickboxing. He began journey in combat sports in 1987, training under Thomas Carthy at the Irish School of Taekwon-Do in Dublin, cross training in boxing and kickboxing for most of his teen and adult life.
From 2014 to 2019, Jon served as the Irish team coach for Kickboxing Ireland’s light contact team, overseeing some of the nation’s most successful international performances including topping the medal table ahead of Russia at the 2016 World Championships. He also served as the full contact team coach up until December 2023.
He has also held the role of National Director of Coaching for Kickboxing Ireland. Over the years, Jon has coached multiple national, European, and world champions and remains the only Irish kickboxing coach to have guided an athlete—Amy Wall—to European Olympic gold in Krakow, 2023. Since founding Red Star Kickboxing in 2004, he has built the club into a dominant force on the competitive circuit. Jon works professionally in high performance sport and has served as Performance Director for the Irish canoe slalom team across two Olympic Games, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024.
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. Combat Sport 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.
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
