[2] In the 2006 European Championship in Plovdiv he earned a points victory over the strong Turk Yakup Kiliç (33:29), but was defeated in the second round against Alexei Schaidulin from Bulgaria.

[citation needed] In the 2007 World Championships in Chicago, he moved up to compete at lightweight earning victories over Miklos Varga from Hungary (39:22) and Jonathan Batista from the Dominican Republic (21:4).

[4][5] There he defeated Rashid Kassem of Denmark (10:2) before overcoming Dimitri Bulenkow of Ukraine (10:2) and then Miklos Varga of Hungary (10:4) which guaranteed Donovan a bronze medal.

In his opening bout he defeated Polish veteran Damian Lawniczak earning a 40–36 points decision victory on a Ricky Hatton promoted show at the National Stadium in Dublin.

[9] The Kildare boxer quickly racked up four wins in his first year as before taking on the first significant challenge of his career when he fought Welsh champion Dai Davies for the BUI Celtic title.

[13] In September 2022, Eric Donovan won the EBU super-featherweight title, beating Frenchman Khalil El Hadri in the Europa Hotel in Belfast.