‘Everyone got great times, made great friends. This is what speedcubing is about’

More than 250 competitors from 26 countries gathered at the SETU Arena in Waterford at the weekend for this year’s Irish Rubik’s Cube Championship.

Speedcubing is a hobby where the aim is to solve a 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube as fast as possible. Competitions for speedcubing hold a variety of events such as one-handed or blindfolded, solving other sized Rubik’s Cubes such as 4x4x4, 6x6x6, 7x7x7, or pyraminx (pyramid-shaped puzzle). The most important event at these competitions is often the original 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube rounds.

“[It] is the most prestigious event of any competition,” says Ciarán Beahan, from Co Dublin, one of the leading figures in the Irish speedcubing community. “The winner of the 3x3x3 event is generally considered the winner of the overall competition. It is the event in which the most people practice and the most difficult to win.”

Beahan says the community is open and welcoming for all interested, online and at events. There are no speed or age requirements for competitions. Many doubt themselves thinking they lack skill or speed, but Beahan encourages to attend the competitions to have a fun and inspirational experience. “At my first competition I saw many Irish national records, and even a world record, be broken. I was in amazement and couldn’t wait to get back home to start practising for the next one.”

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Competitions or events do not have an age or speed requirement to enter. Mary Hennessy, chairwoman of Speedcubing Ireland and a World Cube Association delegate for Ireland, says that for the weekend there were “a wide variety of competitors from eight to 80 [years old], so anyone is welcome. If you can solve it, you can enter.”

Fiona Murdock is a Dubliner who now lives in Verona, Italy, with her family. Her two sons, Cathal and Aidan, are speedcubers and they all came to Waterford to attend the championship at the weekend. Murdock says that Cathal (13) played ice hockey, tennis and loves music but she hasn’t “seen him be as involved or as committed to something as [he has to] cubing”.

“He’s passionate about it. He can focus for hours with it, it relaxes him, it challenges him,” says Murdock. She says that Cathal started cubing 18 months ago after watching the Netflix documentary The Speed Cubers. On Saturday when they arrived, “before he got out of the car, he said to me ‘Mum, a whole room full of people who get me’. That was the most the important moment of the weekend here for us.”

Although the event welcomed competitors from diverse nationalities, winners for the events had to be Irish. At the final round for the 3x3x3 competition, the Irish champion for this year’s edition was Ciarán Beahan with an average of 7.59 seconds. Second place went to CJ Furey, and third to Tao Yu.

“Overall, I think it has been a very successful Irish Championships this year,” says Beahan. “The competition ran efficiently, everyone’s very happy and had an amazing time which is what we love to see. Everyone got great times, made great friends. This is what speedcubing is about.”

American speedcuber Max Park recently broke the world record for a single solve of 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube in June of this year, he now holds it at 3.13 seconds. The European single record is held by Polish Tymon Kolasiński at 3.85 seconds, and Ciarán Beahan set a new Irish national record for single solve at 4.33 seconds during the French Championship 2023 this past May, placing him third in the European rankings.