Mona McSharry and Ellen Walshe Leading Tennessee Volunteers, Making History for Ireland
When Mona McSharry began considering if she wanted to swim in college in the United States and where, she did not realize the history of Irish swimmers competing for the University of Tennessee. Universities began reaching out to McSharry after she captured gold in the 100 breaststroke at the 2017 World Junior Championships in Indianapolis, and about one year later, she took an official visit to Knoxville.
“Everyone’s really kind, and it’s a nice team to be on, and Knoxville is a really beautiful place. The coaches really care. I think that’s all stuff that anyone would look for in a team, and it’s a really competitive team,” McSharry said. “But it’s kind of funny, I didn’t realize until I committed here that Andrew Bree and Barry Murphy had also gone here.”
Murphy had been a top Irish backstroker competing on the world stage for many years, while Bree was a two-time Olympian in the breaststroke events and a semifinalist in the 200 breast at the 2008 Olympics.
Ellen Walshe — Photo Courtesy: Andrew Ferguson/Tennessee Athletics
McSharry arrived at Tennessee in the fall of 2020, and one year later, another standout from Ireland joined her. Ellen Walshe had gone through the recruiting process after the COVID-19 pandemic had begun, so she had to rely on photos and word of mouth as she made her decision. She began speaking about Tennessee with Murphy, who frequently swam at the same pool Walshe did. “So I was actually talking to him nearly every day during the situation,” Walshe said. “He gave such things you wouldn’t even think about. It was really nice, and I was just like, ‘Yeah, that’s probably the place for me.’”
When McSharry and Walshe arrived on campus, both were so swept up in the hustle and bustle of college life and being part of an NCAA swim team that at first, neither missed home too much, despite being more than 3000 miles and an ocean away (although both would feel homesick later on). Both had to adjust to the “mind-blowing” depth in American racing, while the switch to short course yards racing only affected Walshe, who sometimes races backstroke.
“It was definitely a few crashes into the wall here and there on the backstroke. There were definitely a few stubbed nails,” Walshe said. McSharry added, “I thought it would be harder to adjust than it was.”
Both swimmers committed to the Volunteers as solid but not yet established performers on the world stage. Now, with McSharry only 21 years old and Walshe just 20, the two have already become the most successful Irish female swimmers in the 21st century.
Olympic Debuts
In April 2021, McSharry swam under 1:07 for the first time in the long course 100-meter breaststroke to secure a spot on Ireland’s Olympic team. At the time, Walshe did not qualify, but at a meet in late June, just before the Olympic qualifying period closed, Walshe beat her best time in the 200 IM by three seconds to eclipse the FINA “A” cut in the event. Walshe had to wait through a frustrating a few days before she learned that Swim Ireland would indeed send her to Tokyo.
“It was definitely a shock to qualify. It wasn’t the most celebrated experience of my life when it happened,” Walshe said. “It was a lot of being patient and waiting to see what the decision was going to be, which is hard to have fans and supporters communicating with you and trying to find out information. The media chasing you, I wasn’t used to anything like that.”
But of the Olympic experience itself, Walshe said, “we had a ball.” Walshe swam the 100 butterfly on the first evening of the Games and finished 24th, and one day later, McSharry crushed her 100 breast best time by another half-second to finish ninth in prelims. The following morning, she placed eighth in the semifinals, beating out Australia’s Chelsea Hodges by one hundredth to qualify for the Olympic final.
Mona McSharry on her way to qualifying for the 2021 Olympics — Photo Courtesy: Swim Ireland
That performance was historic: McSharry became just the second female swimmer from Ireland to ever qualify for an Olympic final, and the first since Michelle Smith won four medals at the 1996 Olympics (performances later clouded by rumors of performance-enhancing drug use). McSharry was only the third Irish swimmer, male or female, to even advance to the Olympic semifinals (joining Bree and Shane Ryan).
McSharry was asked about the experience of walking out for and then swimming in an Olympic final, but before she could answer, Walshe interrupted.
“Wait, I want to talk first. I felt so sick,” Walshe said, as McSharry started laughing. “I can’t watch Mona race anymore. It makes me feel so sick. I know I wasn’t in the final but going through as being a supporter and having her back through the whole thing, you really get invested in each other.”
McSharry, on the other hand, felt relaxed throughout the experience. “So Ellen took all the sickness, and I actually felt great. I think the semifinal was pretty stressful for me because we knew it was going to be tight to make the final, and then once I made the final, I was like, ‘OK, well this is more than I could have asked for. I’m just going to get out there and race,’” McSharry said. “I went to the call room, and everyone looks so stressed, and I was just like, ‘I have so many stressful races ahead of me,’ so I was like, ‘I’m just going to relax and enjoy this and soak it up.’”
College Swimming Success
As a freshman for the Volunteers in 2021, McSharry placed fourth in the 100-yard breaststroke and third in the 200 breast at the NCAA Championships. In both races, she would finish behind winner Sophie Hansson, the Swedish breaststroker representing NC State, and the two would find themselves racing in almost every major final over the course of the year, including the European Championships, Olympics and Short Course World Championships.
Tennessee had only three individual top-eight finishes at the meet, and McSharry accounted for two of those (while Kristen Stege had the other with a fourth-place finish in the 1650 free).
“I think the 200 was probably the highlight for me at NCAAs because that’s an event that I want to love and I’m not there yet,” McSharry said. “It’s so painful, but it’s really fun when you swim it right, and I’m trying to work on that. Swimming it right there and being able to just experience that and enjoy that so much, I think that’s probably one of my biggest highlights.”
Walshe, meanwhile, did not even have to wait until the NCAA Championships to get her college career off to a blistering start. After only a few months in Tennessee, she swam the fastest time in the country in the 100-yard fly at the Tennessee Invitational, six hundredths faster than Torri Huske (the fourth-place finisher at the Olympics in the 100-meter fly) had swum the same night.
After all the midseason invitationals, Walshe ended up with the No. 2 time nationally in the 100 fly at 50.24, trailing only Olympic gold medalist Maggie Mac Neil, and she also ranked fifth in the 200 IM, sixth in the 400 IM and seventh in the 200 fly. McSharry, meanwhile, posted the nation’s fastest 100 breaststroke time at 57.46, and she also ranked seventh nationally in the 200 breast.
Making History for Ireland
Finally, the Ireland-Tennessee duo finished out the year at the Short Course World Championships in Abu Dhabi, and on night one, Walshe delivered the first international statement swim of her career as she grabbed a silver medal in the 400 IM. The only swimmer to finish ahead of her was Canada’s Tessa Cieplucha, a Tennessee graduate who still trained in Knoxville.
“It was really special. I hadn’t trained a lot with Tess because she was in ISL, but I did know her from the Olympics, and I knew she trained here,” Walshe said. “Obviously, when we hit the wall, it was really nice, to get on the podium with Tess was really special.”
After beginning 2021 off the international radar, Walshe had finished the year by cementing herself as a rising star in the IM and butterfly events, a status she hopes to validate in the coming weeks at the SEC and NCAA Championships.
“It probably started when I raced the heat before I qualified for the Olympics,” Walshe said. “I always sit in my bed with my earphones in, listening to music, and then I’d be like, ‘Imagine if I qualified. Ha ha, as if.’ And then it happened, and I was just like, ‘What’s different between that race and every other race?’ And to be honest, it was just believing in myself. ‘You’ve trained so hard, and you’ve got this.’
“Mainly for me, it’s just telling myself, ‘You can do this. You’re well able to do this.’ No, it’s not easy to go to the back of the block and be like, ‘You can do this.’ I think it clicked in the 400 IM at Worlds.”
Ellen Walshe (right) with Tessa Cieplucha after the women’s 400 IM final at the Short Course World Championships — Photo Courtesy: Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
Four days after Walshe’s medal-winning breakthrough, McSharry earned her first senior-level international medal with a bronze in the 100 breaststroke — finishing right behind, of course, Hansson. That gave Ireland two medals for the meet after the nation had won just a single medal in all previous Short Course World Championships combined.
Now, the focus has become this week’s NCAA Championships, where the two Irish stars will be the go-to swimmers for Tennessee. Individually, both McSharry and Walshe will be favored for top-three finishes at the national meet.
