Sunday next is a big day for the women players of Gaelic football. After playing championship games before small attendances all over the country throughout the year the Ladies Association can expect a big crowd at Croke Park on Sunday for their three finals. A record attendance of 56,114 watched the 2019 final between Dublin and Galway and in recent years the attendance on finals days is generally around the 40,000 mark. The fact that Dublin are not involved on Sunday might affect the size of the crowd, but with six different counties involved and some marketing of the games they should get close the 40k mark.
Thirteen different counties have won the senior champions since 1974, but in recent years the six counties who have dominated are Dublin, Meath, Cork, Kerry, Galway and Mayo. The big game on Sunday is the senior final between Galway and Kerry. It will be a rerun of the 2024 final when Kerry won their 12th final on a score of 3-14 to 0-11. Kerry will probably start as favorites on Sunday after an impressive win over Dublin in the semi-final where captain Siofra O’Shea, Jaydn Lucky and Danielle O’Leary got the early scores that set them up for a comfortable win.
Kerry captain Siofra O’Shea in action in June. [Inpho/James Lawlor]
Galway manager Daniel Moynihan said their spread of 10 different scorers was a key factor in their semi-final win over Armagh. Galway’s solitary win was in 2004. The Cup for the senior winners is the Brendan Martin Cup, named after the Offaly man, who was the first Treasurer of the Ladies Association. He purchased the original cup in a jeweler’s in Fownes Street, Dublin. Brendan who died two years ago, replaced the original with a more elegant trophy for the Ladies Association’s 25th anniversary in 1999.
Fermanagh will hope it is a case of third time lucky when they play Roscommon in the intermediate final. In 2024 the Ladies Association celebrated their 50th anniversary and I interviewed Pauline Gibbons, a former nun who was allowed out of a convent in England to play for Roscommon against Cavan in the 1977 senior. There was only one tier in the seventies, the Junior Championship started in 1985 and the Intermediate competition began in 1997. In the junior final, Antrim, who have won the Junior title three times and were runners-up to Louth last year, will play Carlow, who have never played in a final at any level.
The women have adopted most of the new rules which were introduced by Jim Gavin’s Rules Committee last year, but we don’t see players lining up outside the 40-meter arc like we do in the men’s game to try and kick a two-pointer. The reason for that is that very few women are able to kick a point from 40 meters and the players try and work the ball nearer to the goal like the old days. The other big difference in the women’s game is that they are allowed to pick the ball straight off the ground, as happens in Aussie Rules.
