Last year, Dublin Front Runners marked their 20th anniversary, celebrating two decades of outstanding work in fostering LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports. We spoke to the newly appointed Chairperson of Dublin Front Runners, Chris Richardson, to hear all about what the future of the club holds.

The Dublin Front Runners were founded in 2005, when Mark Rooney placed an ad in Issue 182 of GCN. “New Dublin based social/running club for gay men and women. All levels welcome,” the callout read, and what started as four people going for a run together evolved to become Ireland’s largest LGBTQ+ athletics club.

Today, the club has over 600 members and supports runners of all abilities through weekly runs, structured training, social activities, and community events. Beyond that, Dublin Front Runners is a club where people find community.

“It’s so much more than just a running club,” Chris told us. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve never run before in your life and you’re just looking to get into running or if you’re a seasoned pro. We have all types of people in the club, and I think that really matters because we get to be a part of something bigger together.”

Reflecting on how the club has grown in the 20 years since its inception, the Dublin Front Runners Chairperson said: “We’ve become so big now that we extend into all parts of the community. So I think we have a responsibility to use that for good. We do that in all kinds of ways, the biggest one being the Dublin Pride Run.

“Last year, I got to be a part of discussion panels with companies as to how we champion diversity and inclusion in the club. And probably a good highlight for me was I got to go and speak in schools as well.”

 

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Speaking of his journey with the Dublin Front Runners, Chris said: “I actually only joined two years ago. I always had an issue with meeting like-minded people, making friends in the queer community. And I love running and I love to meet people. So I was like, why not combine both?

“And I have to say, it completely changed my life. I’ve made friends now that I would call lifelong friends in the club. And I think that’s a big part of what the Front Runners are. It’s very community-based, and it’s great to be a part of.”

“I joined the committee last year. It was great to get an insight into how the club works and be a part of that and realise how much work goes into it,” he added.

Following that experience as a committee member, Chris decided to take the next step after former Dublin Front Runners Chairperson Mark Armstrong finished his term. “This is a club I love,” Chris said. “It’s a club that I’ve got lots of experience with now, especially being on the committee. And I really wanted to give something back.

“I thought, what better way to do that than not just be a part of something bigger, but be responsible, be the architect for the change that we want to see. Because we’ve worked so hard for the last year on just five people, which is half a committee. And we had 620 members, which was phenomenal. So it was like, what could we do if we had the full nine people on the committee?”

At their latest Annual General Meeting in January 2026, the Dublin Front Runners elected not only their new Chairperson, but also the entire committee. In addition to Chris, the nine members now include: Brian as Secretary; Marcin as Treasurer; ⁠Cathal as Membership Officer; ⁠Gillian as Social Officer; Paul as Pride Run/Outreach Director; ⁠Dee and John as Training & Development Officers; ⁠and Anne-Marie as Women in Sport Officer.

 

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“Everyone’s got great ideas, we’ve all got great plans. It’s a great year ahead now,” Chris shared, commenting on their first meeting as a committee. “I’ve mentioned how we are getting so much bigger now, but we wanna make sure that that’s sustainable as well.

“We also want to go into groups that don’t see themselves as runners. There are trans and non-binary members who don’t see themselves as a runner or with us at the moment. And we want to go out and get those people in and say, ‘This is a safe space for everybody.’ I established a new outreach officer role that our Pride Run Director is taking on.”

“We also wanna reduce any barriers that might exist for people joining,” Chris added. “A lot of people wouldn’t know that we have, for example, a programme where we actually help pay for people’s fees to the club. Because running clubs can be seen as a very middle-class group, and we don’t want to be seen as that. We wanna be seen as completely inclusive for everybody.

“We do wanna offer more structured training. A lot of people are not aware — and it’s quite funny when you speak to other clubs and they’re like, ‘Oh well, you’re just a social running club — they don’t realise that we’re actually Athletics Island registered. We’re an official athletics club. We compete in races, marathons, international races as well.”

Encouraging everyone who would like to run with a group of like-minded queer people to join the Dublin Front Runners, the Chairperson said: “It doesn’t matter whether you just come in for a run and a coffee or if you want to be racing your heart out. We want to make sure that everybody feels welcome and we’re just gonna really elevate that this year.

“For a lot of us, this club arrives at exactly the right moment in our lives. It did for me when I needed more social connection that I didn’t have before. That’s why it matters so much that we protect what makes it special while making sure even more people get the chance to experience it.”

To find out more about the Dublin Front Runners, visit their website.