Eoin Harrington reporting from Cork
On June 3rd, 2025, Ireland beat Slovenia in the second-ever soccer international held in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh, on the banks of the River Lee.
For the second year running, a Corkonian was the hometown hero, with Saoirse Noonan scoring the only goal to follow in Denise O’Sullivan’s footsteps from the previous year’s historic win over France.
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There was something even more historic about Noonan’s goal, as it came in a game when she became the first player ever to play in two football codes at the historic home of Cork GAA. She had played for the Rebels in the first ladies’ football match held at the redeveloped ground in 2020.
Noonan will hope to play a starring role at the Páirc once more on Friday night, when Ireland play the Netherlands in a pivotal World Cup qualifier.
This week in Cork, we spoke to those who coached her at Nemo Rangers and her old secondary school, Christ King, about how Gaelic football (and the many other sports she excelled in in her youth) have defined her rise to becoming a star of this Ireland team.
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How Cork GAA has defined two Ireland stars
3 June 2025; Saoirse Noonan of Republic of Ireland celebrates after scoring her side’s first goal during the UEFA Women’s Nations League, League B match between Republic of Ireland and Slovenia at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Before Ireland, Celtic, Cork City or even Cork GAA, Saoirse Noonan was a star for Nemo Rangers, alongside now-Ireland teammate Megan Connolly.
At both Nemo and her secondary school Christ King, Noonan stood out from the rest.
A fourfold sports star, Noonan dabbled in camogie and basketball as well as her dual passions for football. Her former coach at Nemo Rangers, Ken Whelan, contends she could have been an even better Gaelic footballer had she not ultimately opted for a career in soccer.
Whelan coached Noonan for half a decade with the club on the outskirts of the city, watching her progress through the ranks with aplomb, displaying skills she picked up from many of the other sports she played.
He remembers two such examples; one incident saw Noonan effortlessly glide past an opposition player with a dummy solo evidently inspired by a basketball-style feint, as well as many occasions in which she would simply kick a ball along the ground soccer-style, embarrassing opponents in the process.
Noonan made her senior intercounty debut for Cork in spectacular fashion eight years ago. At just 18 years of age, she was thrown in at the deep end in the Munster final against Kerry, just after the completion of her Leaving Cert exams.
She delivered 2-02 as the Rebels won their 12th provincial championship, marking herself out as a future star of Cork GAA.
“The potential was there to be one of the very best players for Cork,” Whelan says.
However, her Gaelic football career was short-lived. Even then, Noonan was combining her Gaelic exploits with soccer, already one of the brightest prospects in the League of Ireland WNL.
Soon, the demands of balancing a dual career became too much for Noonan, and her third season with the Cork seniors in 2020 would be her last, as she committed full-time to football.
Dropping her club Gaelic football commitments soon followed, as she stepped away from Nemo at the end of 2021.
“Cork would be in a better place if she had stuck with football,” Whelan contends, when I ask how he feels about her absence from the modern-day setup.
Whelan is now involved on the board of Cork ladies’ Gaelic football, and remains heavily involved in the club which produced Noonan.
Despite his disappointment, Whelan emphasises how proud everyone at the club is of Saoirse Noonan’s progress with both Celtic and Ireland.
The whole club is actually delighted for her and have followed her journey that she’s been on. When she was a member here, she was fully committed to the club here and now that she’s moved on, she doesn’t play LGFA anymore, which is probably a blow to Cork.
I think her preference at the time was to go to the soccer and she couldn’t commit to both of them at the time, which is only fair.
Hopefully she starts tomorrow night. There’ll be a big support from Nemo going to the match, because like I said, people follow her progress on the pathway she’s taken.
Hopefully there’ll be a victory for Ireland tomorrow night.
His comments of pride are echoed by Michael Carroll of Christ King, the secondary school which Saoirse Noonan attended.
Carroll coached Noonan on the school’s soccer team, but she was also a star of Gaelic football, and dabbled in basketball during Transition Year.
“It used to be a joke on a Monday. We’d always say, ‘What did Saoirse do this weekend?” Carroll jokes of her constant sporting excellence.
Noonan was constantly juggling commitments across multiple sports for both club and county, but her level never dropped in any of them.
In fact, Carroll believes that playing multiple sports only served to elevate Noonan’s level. He too notes that she brought skills over from other sports, attributing the leap which delivered her clinical header against Slovenia last year to the skills she developed playing basketball.
When it came down to it, though, there was only ever going to be one choice.
“If she had chosen GAA, she would have excelled,” Carroll tells us.
“But soccer was her first love, her first sport. It had a sparkle in her eye.”
From a young age, Carroll says that Noonan stood out, saying she was a “level above” no matter where she played.
His answer when I asked whether Noonan was always a striker speaks volumes to her attitude.
We’d always say, ‘Just go do your thing.’ She knew what the game needed.
She’d normally start at 10, but she’d do all the defensive work that was needed.
She was always special, a brilliantly example for her own peers.
Noonan takes pride of place on Christ King’s ‘Wall of Fame,’ and is an icon and inspiration to the current students, Carroll tells us.
“She’s an amazing ambassador for the school, a role model for young students,” Carroll says.
She’s an amazing person, and we’re so proud of her.
Like many of her Irish teammates, Noonan has been working towards her UEFA coaching badges, and returned to the school a few years ago to help coach the youth soccer teams.
No doubt many of the aspiring young footballers who received guidance from her at that time will be in the stands on Friday night in Cork, hoping to catch a glimpse of their icon.
One of Saoirse Noonan’s Ireland teammates is also a revered hero in the halls of Christ King, and a former star of Nemo Rangers’ Gaelic football teams.
I am speaking to Nemo Rangers coach Ken Whelan on the balcony overlooking the main pitch at Nemo Rangers’ training facility just south of Cork city centre, and he pauses to point to the trees just across the pitch, noting Noonan grew up nearby, alongside a fellow Ireland hero in men’s star Chiedozie Ogbene.
4 September 2025; Chiedozie Ogbene during a Republic of Ireland training session at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Noonan’s brother Eoin was also a young footballing talent, and has since moved to Indonesia to pursue a professional golf career. The Noonans were fiercely close friends with Ogbene, a friendship which has endured for Saoirse as the pair have embarked on simultaneous senior international careers.
Ogbene, for what it’s worth, was also a Nemo Rangers starlet in his youth, playing in a Cork U21 final for the club at just 17 years old in 2015.
Ken Whelan tells us Ogbene was a major reason the side snatched a draw in the first match; that Cork City FC promptly snapped him up in the following weeks was an equally pivotal reason the club lost the replay.
But back to the matter at hand, the Irish women’s side who will take on the Netherlands in Friday night’s pivotal World Cup qualifier.
Megan Connolly is likely to anchor the Irish midfield and could play an even more pivotal role than usual in the regrettable absence of fellow Corkonian Denise O’Sullivan.
Though Connolly is two years older, she too attended Christ King Secondary School, where she won an All-Ireland soccer title at U16 level in 2012.
That same year, she scored a hat-trick of goals in Cork’s U16 Munster championship victory over Kerry, having come through the ranks at none other than (you guessed it) Nemo Rangers.
Despite her evident potential in both football codes, Connolly had a similar draw to soccer, something her father, Michael, told us back in 2024, ahead of Ireland’s first game in the Páirc.
Even though Connolly was Gaelic football mad (her brother Luke went on to become a star of the Cork inter-county team), Ken Whelan contends she never quite harboured the same love for it as for soccer.
Connolly never made it close to the same level with the Rebels as Noonan, choosing to focus on soccer at a much younger age.
However, her talent was abundantly clear – her father discreetly suggested in our interview two years ago that her departure for soccer shortly after the Munster final hat trick of 2016 may have been a factor in Cork’s eventual All-Ireland final loss to Galway.
Despite her focus on soccer, Connolly holds a remarkable record from her exploits at underage level.
“Megan Connolly, who played here as well and was a super player, tremendous player again, very skilful player, played with Nemo here from probably the age of 10 on 17 or 18,” Ken Whelan says.
Obviously she went to soccer again, but like she was a brilliant player when she played here, very committed.
An interesting story is that she’s playing in Páirc Uí Chaoimh tomorrow. The Féile was held in Cork here in 2011, Megan was with Nemo Rangers in the skills competition. She won on the day, and there was no competition.
The score she scored that day actually surpassed the winning score from the boys’ competition that day. So again, a small bit of history for tomorrow.
Perhaps there is an alternate universe in which Saoirse Noonan is aided by Megan Connolly in the Cork forward line this summer, as the Rebels seek to end a ten-year wait for an All-Ireland title.
Even so, they will receive the adulation of an adoring Cork crowd on Friday night, as they take the field with Ireland in search of a famous result which could deliver a World Cup dream.
Ireland face the Netherlands in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Friday, June 5th at 7:30pm. The game is live on RTÉ 2, and tickets are still available here.
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