ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

A part-time cleaner at a psychiatric hospital won a gold medal for Ireland at the Tokyo Olympics.

Number one seed Kellie Harrington defeated Brazil's Beatriz Ferreira in the women's 60kg lightweight boxing final.

And when not involved in boxing, the amateur athlete is employed every other weekend cleaning a nine-patient ward at Dublin's St Vincent's Psychiatric Hospital.

"It's a rewarding job for me," she said. "It's the interaction: I work with vulnerable people and I just like being able to go in and put a smile on their faces. They're friends - and I think of them as family."

Harrington, who has worked at the hospital for 10 years, started out in the catering department but switched to cleaning because it was a better fit with her training schedule.

Her August win was Ireland's 11th ever Olympic gold medal and its second in Tokyo. The nation finished joint 38th with Israel in the Tokyo medal table - its highest ranking since coming 28th in Atlanta in 1996.

Harrington thanked everyone at work following her triumph. "I just want to say hello to everyone in St Vincent's Hospital," she said. "This is just a part of me, and a part of the journey I'm on in life. What I'll do after this I don't know."

St Vincent's Psychiatric Hospital was founded in 1857 and was mentioned in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, published in 1916.

Harrington is only the second Irish female boxer to win an Olympic medal after Katie Taylor's gold in London 2012.