Proper claimed Long Jump and individual 200 metre gold, before anchoring her club Ferrybank home to gold in the 4 x 100 meter relay on day one.

It was a silver lining for Mark English after clocking the A Standard for next month's World championships as he took silver over 200 metres.

Brian Murphy took the 400 metre title in 47:14, only 13 hundreths of a second clear of English who scooped the silver medal.

“400m silver is nice,” grinned English. “Brian is well experienced at 400 metres, so I just ran hard and fast."

It was a big day for the Barr family as Jessie and Thomas Barr reclaimed their 400 metres hurdles titles, in the space of 10 minutes.

Jessie powered to victory in a time of 57:48 over 80 seconds clear of second place, while bronze medallist Nessa Millet set a new national junior record of 59:00.

Thomas battled with Jason Harvey getting the upper hand in the home straight and edging closer to the Irish record posting 49:78.

“We were neck and neck the whole way round, it was a great battle,” said Barr. “That was our first race of the season.”

Thomas Barr than came back for the final race of the day anchoring the Ferrybank 4 x 400 metre team to gold in a sprint to the line with Crusaders.

New national 800 metre record holder Rose Ann Galligan finished outside the medals in fifth position, dropping down to 400 metres.

Jennifer Carey was the fastest of the one lappers in 53:46, Sinead Denny taking silver in 54:04, while Shauna Cannon took bronze two hundredths of a second behind.

Laura Crowe fell short in her last gasp attempt to make the plane to Moscow, taking 1500m gold in 4:13:96, outside the standard for Moscow.

Crowe’s brave front running in the teeming Santry rain was too much for the pack finishing well clear of Claire McSweeny in second position.

The men’s 1500m was a classic dual with David McCarthy pushing the pace from the second lap, Kilkenny man Eoin Everard snatching victory on the line in 3:44:58.

David Donegan took his seventeenth national title, jumping a best of four meters 65, 10 centimeters clear of Wes Waterford Thomas Houlihan who took silver in the men’s Pole Vault

Mark Christie made a successful return to Santry stadium claiming the 5,000 metres which he last won in 2008 in a time of 14:07:18 clear of Michael Mulhare in second and James McCarthy in third position.

David Hynes stole the headlines in the sprint event taking gold in 10.64 seconds, relegating Steven Colvert and Marcus Lawlor to the minor medals.

The Men’s Long Jump proved the most competitive field event of the day with Donor Harriers' Eamonn Fahey taking gold with a best of seven metres 20, just three centimetres clear of Leevales David Quilligan.

Brendan Boyce warmed up for 50 kilometres in Moscow winning the national 10,000 metres walk title in 42:40:19, close to 60 seconds clear of Luke Hickey.