How Offaly camogie reached the promised land

ONE of the great sporting achievements in womens' sport in Offaly has been by the county camogie team as they progressed up through junior and intermediate ranks to reach senior level.

And while the ultimate success has been beyond their reach, Offaly have done very well to retain their senior status in the past couple of years, going toe to toe with the best teams and players in the country.

It is a great era for camogie in Offaly. The county team have won All-Ireland Junior and Intermediate titles while St Rynagh's achieved their life ambitions when winning the All-Ireland club intermediate title last year – at the time of writing, they were zoning in on two in a row.

Camogie has become a hugely popular sport in Offaly with clubs throughout the south of the county while Tullamore and St Sinchill's have very strong clubs away from the hurling heartland – Shamrocks have established an underage club in the past couple of years.

There is a great tradition of camogie in Offaly, though it took a while for the game to truly establish itself. The national Cumann Camogaiochta na nGael was formed in 1904 but camogie did not gain a foothold in Offaly at that time.

It was in the 1930s before camogie began to thrive in Offaly as clubs were formed in areas such as Lusmagh, Mucklagh, Ballycommon, Ballycumber, Killoughey, Rahan, Drumcullen, Kinnitty and Tullamore – it is interesting to note that some of those areas, especially Ballycommon and Ballycumber, are ones where there was not a male hurling tradition but camogie teams were fielded. It probably represented the desire of women to play an indigenous Irish field sport and it was the 1970s before ladies football got established.

By the mid 1930s, Offaly were fielding camogie teams. A famous Clare man Mick Falvey was their trainer – Falvey, a former Clare and then Offaly hurler, taught in a few schools, including Tullamore, Edenderry and Ballinagar. Offaly reached the 1935 Leinster junior final, where Wexford pipped them by a point.

In the following decades, camogie in Offaly underwent fluctuations as clubs came and went. The 1940s was a particularly barren decade as there was no club championships for much of it and a county team was not fielded.

The 1950s was similar. There was no County Board, no club championships and players from Offaly interested in playing camogie did so with Laois and Tipperary clubs. Occasionally teams were put out on special occasions but it was the 1960s before camogie was properly organised in Offaly again. It was very slow beginnings, however. Three clubs were needed to form a County Board but there was only two in Offaly for the most part – one of these was called St Mary's in Tullamore but they soon disappeared.

Gradually camogie got established again as clubs were formed in areas such as Daingean, Cappincur, Drumcullen, Coolderry, Kinnitty and Rahan. Offaly fielded teams again and they won the Leinster junior championship in 1962 and 1963, going up to intermediate after that. They were beaten by Wexford in the 1967 Leinster intermediate final.

An Offaly Camogie County Board had been formed in 1966 but a shortage of players was a major issue. Again, club and county action fell off the scene to such an extent that Tullamore had to affiliate in Laois for a spell in the 1970s as there was no opposition in Offaly, winning the Laois senior title in 1974.

Things improved as secondary schools in Kilcormac and Clara and then Banagher began to promote the game. Clubs were formed in Birr, Drumcullen, Clara and Kilcormac and a County Board was reformed at the end of the 1970s.

The game really began to evolve and grow from the 1980s as new clubs emerged – not all of them lasted the distance and some were fleeting experiments.

Drumcullen won an All-Ireland community games camogie title in 1986 and they went onto become a dominant force at senior level. Underage championships were run, sometimes with a B one necessary to cater for the numbers and disparity in standards.

By the 1990s, camogie was firmly established in Offaly with Bord na Scoil championships also run. There were eleven Offaly players on the Roscrea Vocational Schools team that won an All-Ireland schools title early in the decade while Drumcullen won the Leinster junior title in 1992 and in 1999, Offaly won their third Leinster junior crown.

They won again in 2001, defeating Carlow in the final while there were great celebrations when they won their first All-Ireland title in 2005, defeating Armagh in the All-Ireland minor final. Underage and schools work paid off as Offaly reached the All-Ireland junior final in 2008, suffering a heartbreaking last gasp defeat to Clare.

A year later, Offaly finally got there, beating Waterford in the All-Ireland junior final with hurling legends, Joachim Kelly and Mark Corrigan at the helm along with Catherine Byrn, who had played in the 2001 All-Ireland junior final defeat by Tipperary.

In 2010, Offaly went a step further, winning the All-Ireland intermediate championship with a superb final win over Wexford.

They have stayed senior since then. There have been All-Ireland B titles at u18 and 16 level and as GAA and Camogie enbrace the “one club” model, new teams have been formed in areas such as Edenderry, Shamrocks and Belmont. St Rynagh's success has added to the growth of optimism and while Offaly have to work hard to retain their top flight status, the game is in very good health at the moment.