By MÓC
On 3 May 2025 Ireland was hit by a cacophony of news stories, all covering Camogie. While this sounds at first like great recognition for a seriously underfunded and underappreciated sport, it was not. All these news articles were covering a non-issue, whether players should be allowed to wear shorts or remain wearing skorts. While the skorts ‘issue’ needed to be solved, which it was on 22 May 2025, it most definitely is not the biggest issue facing Camogie or Ladies Gaelic Football (LGFA hereafter). Focusing on Camogie, this article will use the skorts issue to critically assess what needs to be done in women’s Gaelic games at large from funding and opportunities to facilities, organisation and larger interest.
Firstly, looking at funding, women’s Gaelic games are critically underfunded. Former Camogie Association President, Hilda Breslin, is correct in her assessment that this underfunding is a result of misogyny and discrimination against women partaking in sports. In 2021 male Inter-County players received 3 million Euros in government funding, this also is in large part focused on individual player development and recovery. Whereas, in the same year female Inter-County players received just 700,000 Euros, this funding is more directed at the whole team. This raging disparity is all too familiar to any of our readers who understand the historical attitude and opposition to women’s sports in general in Ireland. This opposition leads to the lack of opportunities we see for female athletes and young girls wanting to strive for a career in sport, or women and girls in general who just want to play sport casually.
Leading on from this, The Growing Up in Ireland Project has been tracking thousands of children born after 1998. It states that over a quarter of Ireland’s 17 and 18 year olds maintain an unhealthy weight, and more girls than boys are overweight (30% for girls, 25% for boys). Only 66% of teenagers are getting the recommended amount of exercise (that being 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise). The gender split on this is even more telling; 76% of boys are getting the recommended amount whereas just over half of girls are. Why is this trend happening? Many schools fail to offer Physical Education (PE) to students past Transition Year and many schools have shortened their lunch breaks in the aftermath of Covid-19. John Greene speaks about his experiences coaching an underage girls GAA team where he saw parents unsupportive of their daughters playing sport, schools failing to provide proper physical education, coaches struggling to get access to pitches for training and matches, and women reluctant to come forward for coaching and administrative positions due to a lack of encouragement in the past.
Thirdly, the facilities, and organisation for women’s Gaelic Games are at best subpar. 5 students of University College Dublin (UCD hereafter) have spoken out against the unfair treatment and facilities found at UCD for Gaelic Games. Firstly, they state that in order to take trials students must fill out a Google Form with basic details and the highest level they have played. But, if any students put in that form that they played at Inter-County level they were automatically put into the second team and did not have to face trials. A student acutely observed how flawed this system of choosing players is, as making the team for a Division 4 county is a lot easier than for a Division 1 county. That’s not even to mention the fact that coaches are choosing players that they have never even seen play! The coaches for the trials also seemed disinterested and disorganised, splitting the 60 players of the first week of trials into four teams and letting them play two matches. And instead of taking notes and tracking the players they kicked a ball amongst themselves ignoring the women’s game. By the end of the three weeks of trials numbers had halved to 30 students with most citing the trials being “not well run” as their reason. At the end of the trials coaches told players this was the “end of the road” and that they would be in touch. While players on the second team claimed that their training had already started while trials were on-going and that they knew of very few players who joined the second or third teams as a result of the trials. Two students interviewed also stated that they, alongside many others at the trials, were not informed about the existence of a third team, a team that struggled for numbers throughout the year!
Players on the second team have claimed that throughout the season organisation for matches has been poor with teams being selected at the very last minute specifically, the night before matches. At away games the UCD team would often not bring a medical bag or a physio with one player recounting a match played in Cork where a player received an injury to her hand and asked for an ice pack but was told that “no one had brought it”. Another player claims that at a different match away in Cork a player was badly hit in the eye and the Cork side’s physio had to enter the pitch to supply aid. This lack of medical care is simply an insult and if the other team does not have the medical facilities it will cause career ending injury or worse.
Both the first and second teams played in Queen’s University Belfast (QUB hereafter) on 14 and 15 March for the All-Ireland Semi Finals and Finals. Two players on the second team say that they were supplied with one night in a hotel, but had to cover their own costs, breakfast, and dinner. QUB provided lunches for both days after the Semis and Finals. One of the players stated “even watching our friends on the boys’ teams, watching what all they’re getting compared to us, and even compared to our first team, it just seemed so unfair the entire year.” The failure on UCD’s part to not match the funding the men’s teams get or even properly cover the costs for the women’s team is just another notch on the belt against women’s sport.
There were multiple issues with the team selection and the kits supplied. Firstly, regarding the team selection for the second team’s Semi Final: the team sheet was accidentally submitted alphabetically rather than by position. This resulted in the team captain being listed as a substitute. Also, this meant that the numbers on the pitch were not by position which proved confusing for players on both teams, commentators, and spectators. Secondly, a lot of jerseys were camogie jerseys rather than LGFA and one of their corner-backs lined out not only with the wrong number but also last year’s jersey so it was a different shade of blue with a different design. Another player claimed that one of the parents of the players had to wash the jerseys of the first and second teams!
Finally, while interest in Camogie and LGFA is growing steadily it still lags well behind the men’s games. Between all the All-Ireland Finals in 2024 the Hurling Final had an average television audience of 1,037,000, the Football Final had an average of 889,000, the 2022 Camogie Final had an average of just 188,000, and worst of all, the LGFA Final had an average of 149,400. The statistics here are staggering. The gap in women’s Gaelic Games is stark and the Camogie Association and LGFA need to do something to breach the gap and promote interests in the two sports. Two easy decisions to make are a decrease in ticket prices, and to have more games televised live. While they will not fix the larger issue it will certainly help viewership numbers as most people just wanna watch the sports they love no matter if it’s men or women playing.
Women’s Gaelic Games are seriously at risk right now. Between funding, discrimination, scandal, and attention. The recent skorts fiasco was just a way of papering over cracks and sweeping the real issues facing the sports under the carpet.