“It changed my life forever” – Olympic glory, death threats, and 50 years of the Mary Peters Trust

A star-studded gala event will take place at the Europa Hotel on November 21

This year, Lady Mary Peters – Northern Ireland’s sporting ‘Golden Girl’ – is celebrating 50 years of the Mary Peters Trust, which she set up in the wake of her gold medal-winning performance in the 1972 Munich Olympics.

In those five decades, her charitable organisation has supported thousands of young athletes from Northern Ireland in every conceivable sport, from household names like Rory McIlroy, Rhys McClenaghan and Kate O’Connor to talented young people you won’t have heard of, but whom have excelled in their sports over the years.

On November 21, Lady Mary will be joined at the Europa Hotel by many of the athletes she has helped along the way, including Olympic gold medallist Rhys McClenaghan and four-time Paralympic champion Michael McKillop, at this year’s Sport Inspires festive fundraiser, a gala lunch event to celebrate the Mary Peters Trust’s 50th anniversary.

READ MORE: ‘She’s an icon’ – Paralympic hero Michael McKillop on 50 years of the Mary Peters TrustREAD MORE: NI’s Molly McKenna on the ups and downs of trampolining and her Cirque du Soleil dream

The celebration, which will also be graced by special guests Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, will include an auction to raise money for the Trust, with items donated by the likes of Van Morrison, Ed Sheeran and Hollywood actress Jane Seymour.

The top items are now available to view and bid on at the Ross’s Auctions website, and Lady Mary is thrilled at the line-up of lots, which also includes a whiskey tour and tasting in the footsteps of the King and Queen, an Ireland rugby shirt signed by the 2024 Six Nations-winning squad, and a portrait of Lady Mary herself. So will she be bidding on that particular item?

“I don’t think so, I see enough of myself!” she laughed when she visited Belfast Live recently. “But I hope that somebody will be inspired by it.”

No doubt they will – Lady Mary’s success in 1972 continues to inspire people around the world, and particularly here at home. Her triumph in the pentathlon competition was Great Britain’s only gold medal that year and led to her winning the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award, not to mention her subsequent Damehood and, more recently, being named Lady of the Garter by Queen Elizabeth II in 2019.

“The ultimate in a sporting career is to win the Olympic gold, and Northern Ireland was going through the worst of the Troubles at that time, so I wanted to bring home some good news to Northern Ireland,” she said.

The news caused a sensation here at home and Lady Mary – though already celebrated for her previous successes in the Commonwealth Games – became a household name overnight. But nothing quite prepared her for the homecoming in Belfast city centre, where thousands of people lined the streets.

“We had nothing that gave us an indication of what was happening back here, but my homecoming was wonderful and I felt it brought the people out on the street for a happy day, coming down Royal Avenue with the ticker tape from the windows. It was amazing. And going to the City Hall to be met by the Lord Mayor – on the back of a lorry!

“But I have never looked back. Wherever I go, people still want to say, ‘Congratulations on your success’. And it gave me opportunities to do so many other things in life that it changed my life forever.”

Not everyone was so pleased, however. Born and brought up in England before she moved to Northern Ireland at the age of 11, the fact that Lady Mary represented Great Britain meant that she was not universally popular.

“I had a threat to my life that if I came home to Belfast, I would be shot and my flat would be bombed,” she recalled. “My father [who lived in Australia] obviously wanted me to go back to Australia with him.”

The fact that she ignored the threats and decided to return home to what she had always considered her people cemented her status as one of the most popular sportspeople of her generation.

“The happiest days of my life are when I’m on the plane coming home to Northern Ireland,” she said. “It’s my home and where all my friends are, and I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else.”

After her Olympic triumph – which came in the twilight of her career – Lady Mary went on to become a figurehead of sport in Northern Ireland, and women’s sport in particular. She is regularly named as an inspiration by those who have followed in her footsteps, including Olympic multi-eventers like Denise Lewis, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, and Newry-born Kate O’Connor.

“If I had got second, nobody would remember me at all,” she said. “I just loved it and I’m still partying, 53 years on!

“People love a winner, and I was invited to do many things as a woman that would never have happened to a woman normally, because the world was opening up to listening to women’s points of view. I served on many committees as the lone woman over the years and I hope I gave opportunities to other women to succeed.

“We deserve to have the best in the world here in Northern Ireland. If we don’t, we’ll not produce the athletes of the future. We have a 50-metre swimming pool now. We have Rhys and gyms doing wonderful work for gymnastics.

“Women’s sport has taken off by the fact that we now have a Northern Ireland team that played in the Euros in soccer. We have rugby teams that are playing really well. Hockey teams who won the silver in the world championships. Women’s sport is growing day by day, and I’m sure it’ll never regress in the future.”

Certainly not for as long as Dame Mary Peters and the Mary Peters Trust have anything to do with it.

For more information on the 2025 Sport Inspires festive fundraiser or to book a table, contact events@asgcomms.com. Tickets cost £120 plus VAT per person / £1,200 plus VAT per table of 10.