The night before the final table of the 2026 Irish Open, Daryl McAleenan read through dozens of good luck messages on his phone, then put it into airplane mode and didn’t open it again until late the following day, several hours after his fourth-place finish in the Main Event for €250,000.
He said: “My friend Mark had my wife Clare’s number on his phone so, as soon as I went out of the tournament, I immediately FaceTimed her and my youngest son Riley on his phone. I didn’t want to use mine as I knew there’d be a lot of messages! But then I needed to call my brother and my Mum and, as soon as I opened the phone, it went totally ballistic!”
Within just a few hours, Daryl had received over 400 WhatsApp messages and more than 150 messages on Facebook. Poker players all over Ireland – north and south – were sending in their congratulations, saying how thrilled they were, saying how they had watched the entire final table on the live stream. In Daryl’s home town of Castlewellan in County Down, every pub had aired the live stream on their TVs.
Like 2024 Irish Open champion Simon Wilson before him, Daryl McAleenan had become a national hero. The Irish News ran a story, and the Mourne Observer published a two-page spread. There was more to follow in the Newry Democrat and countless clubs, forums and players were posting the news on their social media pages including an in depth interview on the Chip Race podcast.
Wherever Daryl went, people were shaking his hand, patting him on the back, giving him a hug. He added: “It really was incredible. It still is. The other day, I was sitting in my car and a lady knocked on the window and said: ‘Congrats. We were all watching you on the TV!’ I didn’t even know her!”
Record-breaking result
As it turns out, Daryl’s €250,500 cash was the biggest by a Northern Irish player in more than 20 years, eclipsed only by Conor Tate’s deep run in the 2005 WSOP Main Event. And it also propelled Daryl up to fifth place on the Northern Ireland all-time money list with total live tournament winnings of over $550,000.
Daryl is well-known and well-liked in the Irish poker community. He’s friendly, chatty and has a solid reputation as an accomplished grass roots player. He said: “I knew everyone was behind me on the rail. There were a lot of tournaments going on that day, and the boys didn’t enter them because they wanted to support me. It was a nice feeling. And when we cut the five-way deal, I did really still want to win and I knew how much my rail wanted me to win – for the prestige of being the winner, the trophy and the extra €70k. A small part of me will always wish I had done it but, looking back, I did extremely well to lift €250k so will be content with that.”
One hand in particular turned things around for Daryl when play was five-handed. He went all-in with A2 of clubs against Danilo Donnini’s A10 of spades. The flop came down all clubs securing Daryl a miracle flush and a 25,000,000 pot. He said: “At that point, the rail erupted and it was the best feeling ever knowing there were so many people behind you wanting you to win.”
The final five agreed a deal locking up €250,000 for each player. Daryl was thrilled – a life-changing prize was in the bag. He said: “Ninth place awarded €40k and I’d already laddered up to a €136,000 payout. Now it was up to €250k.
“I may never get a score life this again. I’m consistently running deep in tournaments – in fact, I’ve won three since the Irish Open! – but the fields at the Irish Open are a lot tougher now. There’s a lot of international players. I am confident in my own abilities but you could play the Irish Open for 40 years and never get to the final table. It really is a lifetime achievement.”
Even Daryl’s appearance at the Irish Open this year was something of a miracle. His wife Clare broke her ankle a week earlier and, even though he attends every year, Daryl offered to skip this year’s event to help out at home. Clare was having none of it. “Clare insisted I go,” he said.
Family is at the heart of everything Daryl does and even after his historic Irish Open result, his Facebook post after the event paid tribute to other major family achievements that week: his eldest son Ryan, 18, made his debut in the Castlewellan Seniors GAA team, Daryl’s pool team won their league for the first time ever and his middle son Dylan, 17, represented County Down and scored 1-5 in his team’s first round Championship match.
Now 40, Daryl – a former accountant with Price Waterhouse Coopers – will be investing the cash rather than splashing out on bigger buy-ins or luxury items. He and Clare, who first met as teenagers in the local hospital’s A&E department (he had a broken finger and Clare had a broken arm), have booked a family holiday in Benidorm but otherwise it’s business as usual.
He said: “I’m very lucky that Clare has always supported me in playing poker. And my three sons are all excelling at sport and I take a lot of pride in that. I won’t even be going to Vegas this year as we have three weddings coming up in July. My motivation with poker has always been the same – to earn enough money for my family, providing for the kids and their future.”
Looking ahead, Daryl is considering playing in Malta, and November’s debut Irish Open Marrakech festival is definitely in his sights. He said: “For me, it’s about combining poker with the right crowd of people. So, I always go with friends, and we have four to five days of poker, and a few days of holiday as well.”
And of course, there is next year’s Irish Open in Dublin. For Daryl, it’s unmissable. He said: “If you’re Irish, it’s definitely the one tournament in the year you’re going to play. If you’re going to play just one event, that’s the one. It’s a real chance of making life-changing money.”
