Team Ireland's boxers at Paris 2024 won't be wanting for experience.

Kellie Harrington knows what it takes to come away from an Olympics with a gold medal in the back pocket and Aidan Walsh also returned home from Tokyo three years ago gratefully clutching a bronze.

The Belfast fighter's sister Michaela was also at the delayed 2020 Games as was Roscommon's Aoife O'Rourke.

That quartet's knowhow when it comes to navigating an Olympics both in and out of the ring will be invaluable, along with the tutelage of highly experienced lead coach Zaur Antia.

But the rest of the ten-strong contingent of Irish fighters heading to Paris have not been to an Olympics before, although Sligo's Dean Clancy has been to the youth version in fairness.

But the least experienced team member, at least where involvement in boxing itself is concerned, will be Meath bantamweight Jennifer Lehane, the 25-year-old only taking up boxing just over five years ago.

That late arrival to pugilism is mainly down to a long-time commitment to another discipline that her family had long been immersed in.

"I started taekwondo when I was four or five years old," the Ashbourne native explains to RTÉ Sport.

"So I grew up with that and I started competing internationally as a junior then for taekwondo when I was about 15 years old, going to the likes of European and World Championships.

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Jennifer Lehane was among six of the Team Ireland boxers to chat in-depth to RTÉ Sport as they convened at the Sport Ireland Campus

"It was only when I was 20, my second year of college, that there was a break of competitions.

"So I decided to go down to DCU boxing club just to stay fit and pass the time a bit while the training for taekwondo ceased up a little bit. I suppose I took it from there and here we are now."

Taekwondo is an Olympic discipline with Jack Woolley representing Ireland for a second Games this summer.

But the ITF version of the martial art which Lehane competed in is not Olympics affiliated which of course means the inadvertent switch to boxing has opened a door that had previously been shut to her.

Still, the mindset gained from elite competition in taekwondo continues to serve her well today.

"I learned how to be a competitor through the taekwondo and I had already developed an elite athlete approach to my sport through taekwondo," says Lehane.

"Definitely there were transferrable skills, I suppose even getting used to being hit through the taekwondo was a big plus for the boxing. Definitely some skills didn't cross over as well, I suppose different disciplines because obviously you can kick in taekwondo and you can't kick in boxing.

"But definitely I developed as an athlete through my taekwondo and then specialised in boxing after that."

After winning a National Elite Championship title three years ago at featherweight, Lehane was fast-tracked into the IABA's High Performance Unit.

But her rise and the growing prospect of aiming for the Paris Olympics made it more challenging to balance sport with her day job as a primary school teacher. Something would have to give in the short-term.

Lehane training with coach Zaur Antia during the Team Ireland Paris 2024 boxing team announcement

"I finished my degree and in my first year out working, that was the first time I won the National Elite Championships," she explains.

"So after that I was invited up to the High Performance Unit for training. So I actually took a week off work (just before) the mid-term breaks, so I got the two weeks to train in the High Performance Unit.

"I tried to keep up working full-time and also trying to train full-time but it kind of just led to burn-out and I wasn't really developing as much as I would've liked because obviously I was missing morning sessions because I was working.

"Then it was announced that my 54kg was going to be a new weight for the Olympics and I said that's for me and I made a decision that after the first year out teaching, I'd put a pause on it for now and go full-time with the boxing."

As she has said already, it's certainly paid off, although like some other members of the Irish boxing team, it was a drawn-out process to get to Paris.

'I'm still in competition mode going into Paris'

Lehane missed out on qualifying during World Boxing Olympic Qualification Tournament 1 held in Italy back in March.

But weeks later at the second qualification tournament in Thailand, she fought her way past three opponents on route to grabbing one of the quota spots for Paris.

And with the final phase of qualifying journey coming in such close proximity to the Olympics she is hoping to carry that momentum into her debut Games.

"Just coming out of the last qualifying tournament there in Bangkok just a few weeks ago, I'm using it as a trampoline effect," says Lehane.

"I'm still in competition mode going into Paris. I'm still getting that itch to get back into the ring and to go through the routine of fight day, I'm just trying to soak it up and I can't wait to enjoy it all and do what I do."