The Wicklow Open 2026 13th September N11 Ashford House

In the main Wicklow Open event, there were 62 competitors. After a long day of play starting at 10.30, we reached the semi-finals around 6.00pm and it came down to Graham Dungan v Jamie Gallagher and Neil Dobbs v Sean Casey.

Neil and Graham progressed to play an extremely tight final where Neil kept nudging ahead only for Graham to pull it back. In the end Neil prevailed - a successful end to a remarkable day for him after an allergic reaction to a wasp sting in Round 2 that threatened to derail his entire day.

Outgoing champion, Daniel Lynch, was on hand to present the trophy and prizes and the famous Shark Trophy.

The final event of the weekend, the “Wicklow Dice” led to the closest finish of all which sums up the vagaries of backgammon.

In a match to 5 points tied at 4-4. Jackie Murphy has one checker left and it’s on her 1pt. Alex Fahey has two checkers on his 4pt and one on his 5pt. He needs high doublets to steal the match. He rolls, one dice lands quickly on a 4, the other keeps spinning for what seems like an eternity. Before landing on the 4 he needed to win him the event!

In the Paul Davitt Trophy competition (formerly the Consolation event), 48 players took part and the semifinals were contested between Dave Sheehy and Wicklow’s own Cris Dodea and Rich Tegna and Evren Unal.

Rich and Dave reached the final with Rich coming out on top. After all the extraordinary work has done to raise the standard of Irish backgammon through the ten division Irish League, it was amazing to be able to welcome him to Wicklow and he was a hugely popular winner.