“This is our Christmas present” says St. Kevins joint captain<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI suppose my mam set up the club with Alice Brennan and Bernadette McCabe in 1979. So that was the year after I was born. We’ve been working towards this for 47 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would rather it was 25, but it was 47 years ago. And on the shoulders of those founding members, this has come to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd all the trainers that came before them, all the mentors that took these girls since they were four, five, six years of age, deserve the credit for where we have arrived, and that’s to this final, and it’s unreal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be part of it. My daughter being on the team, my mum will be on the sideline. It’s incredible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team itself is very youthful. I think the oldest member on the team is 26. The youngest is 16 and was only 16 there in February. The youngest on the panel only turned 16 there last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that just shows you where we are as a club, and with all the talent that’s coming through next year, there’s more talent ready to play on that team next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
An impressive number of players on the panel are dual players, balancing football and camogie.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, that is something that simply couldn’t work without it.\u00a0I think I counted up the other day, we have 28 dual players or 26, and to think that we have successfully last year got to both senior championship finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut always with that communication, it has worked for the dual training and for matches and refixtures. It wouldn’t work without it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Louth camogie<\/p>\n
While Louth\u2019s camogie fortunes have been challenging, structural changes may finally offer hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I suppose the results have been struggling, a testament to the girls who continue playing despite being beaten in every match.<\/p>\n
\u201cDelighted that at last, we’ve been listened to and National Camogie have now released a new 3B league and championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that’s us, Monaghan, Donegal and Mayo, wonderful for counties like us that really do struggle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played Armagh last year. That’s not a competition for either team. So, this is really exciting for 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Support<\/p>\n
Phillipstown has embraced this campaign with colour and passion.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhillipstown’s amazing, the first thing that went up was red and black sheep. Then the car came, then the wigs came, the jerseys. At all our matches, we have outnumbered the opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe support has been incredible. It’s just giving that big push to camogie, we’re working really hard to keep that going.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Riley, the journey is doubled: a community dream intertwined with her daughter Tara\u2019s presence on the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI zone out. I’m so proud of her. I’m so proud of all of the girls. I’ve trained a lot of them since they were five. And how do I act? Like any parent, I lose it at times. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re doing it for them, we’re doing it for the community. I’m not sure we’d be visible for coverage, but I can’t even think about that, keeping these girls together.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody wants to help these girls do better in the final, and if we can do it, we will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday\u2019s All-Ireland camogie final carries years of family and community history for Martha Riley of St. Kevin’s.\u00a0 Her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22287,4183,4184,61,60,100935,43],"class_list":["post-186608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-camogie","tag-gaa","tag-gaelic-games","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-louth-gaa","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}