Co-Founder

Damian Browne is an extreme adventurer, peak performance athlete and International keynote speaker from Galway, Ireland. 

During a 16-year career as a professional rugby player, Damian donned the colours of some of rugby’s European elite, including Northampton Saints & Leinster; where he won club rugby’s biggest prize, The Heineken Cup. 

Since retirement from professional rugby, Damian has become one of the World’s foremost extreme adventurers; undertaking some of the most demanding physical and mental challenges on the planet, including the 257 km Sahara Desert ultra marathon, The Marathon des Sables, climbed 5 of the 7 Summits, a renowned mountaineering feat & most recently created history by becoming the first person ever to row from New York City to Galway, taking 112 days and in the process become one of only a handful of people to have rowed the Atlantic in both directions.

Damian’s drive to explore his physical & mental limits is not exclusive to ultra endurance events and he is a multi-time Irish indoor rowing champion, holding all-time, all-category records for the 500m and 1000m distance.

For 26 years Damian has pursued his human potential, relentlessly pushing his body & mind to and past their perceived limits; forging himself & his character in what he deems “a crucible life”. The Ironmind Institute is a proud part of his legacy and vehicle to share everything he has discovered striving at the coalface of life. Damian is engaged to Rozelle and the father to two little girls, Élodie and Fiadh. 

Co-Founder

MacDara is married to Orna and together they are thoroughly enjoying the richly rewarding adventure of enabling their children Beabhin and Cillian to live their very best lives. Mac (as most people call him) has fallen more often than he has succeeded and is most proud of always getting up. He has spent most of his career helping others to figure out what they can do differently today to be better tomorrow and has learned the hard way that we almost always have to do the thing we like the least to get the thing we want the most. He is most comfortable when he’s stretched and dreads the day that he wakes up with nothing to do, he believes that service to humanity is the best work of life and sees everyday as a school day. A perfect day for Mac begins really early with some quiet reading and reflecting time, continues with a really good session in the gym followed by a dip in the sea, a breakfast with his family and then some really good work in the service of others. Mac is a fluent Irish speaker, loves live entertainment (especially a good rock concert) and is a long suffering (but hugely content) member of Galwegians RFC. He earned his MBA at the University of Galway, Ireland and is a graduate of the Franklin Covey Institute programme for highly effective managers.