Vote to allow shorts in camogie would not have come without 'extreme action', says Dublin captain

LAST UPDATE | 1 hr ago

DUBLIN CAMOGIE CAPTAIN Aisling Maher has said last night’s vote to allow shorts to be worn in camogie matches would not have happened without “some form of extreme action”.

The issue came to a head earlier this month when players from the Dublin and Kilkenny senior teams were forced to change by match officials after the two teams arrived to the pitch wearing shorts rather than the mandated skorts.

The Munster final between Cork and Waterford on 10 May was then postponed the night before the match when both teams stated that they would refuse to play unless they were permitted to wear shorts.

Camogie Association President Brian Molloy told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that he thought there would be a protest at the Munster final but that “it only became clear very late in the day that that wasn’t going to be possible”.

“The players had made it very clear that they didn’t want to play the game in skorts,” said Molloy.

“I couldn’t allow the game to go forward against our rules so we had no choice but to honour the decision that the players had made, and all we could do was defer it until after the Special Congress.”

A motion at the Special Congress last night on whether to give players the option to wear shorts received an overwhelming 98% of the votes from delegates.

Molloy described the vote as a “very important moment” for the Camogie Association and added that the “Association listens to our members”.

Also speaking to Morning Ireland, Aisling Maher said the protests “escalated the speed of change” and that change would not have come without “some form of extreme action”.

Maher said the issue had caused a “huge amount of frustration with players” and there would have been a risk of further games being cancelled or played under protest had the change not been introduced before the championship.

“You have to see the positives in this,” said Maher.

“The beginning of the All-Ireland Camogie Championship has probably never got as much attention, and hopefully some of that attention will stay with camogie in a more positive light now we’re into the summer months.”

Molloy expressed a similar sentiment and said he was “delighted to see a lot of people getting interested in camogie”.

He added: “My ask of all of those people is [to] stay interested, stay focused on supporting camogie”.

Molloy said it would be “amazing if all those people who put their support behind the players actually turned up and actually made sure that, for the first time ever, the camogie All-Ireland final was a full house”.

Maher said the vote was a “victory for the sport” but also a “victory for young players coming up, who’ll now be able to make a choice about what they wear while they play”.

Meanwhile, a majority of the delegates from Dublin Camogie Board at last night’s congress were players, after Maher said that players felt “isolated from the process” and wanted “visibility and access”.

As a result, the chair Karl O’Brien allowed three players to join members of the county board and they were able to vote.

There was no debate before the vote but Maher noted that there had already been a “huge amount of debate over the issue to date”.

“I guess his (Molloy’s) point would have been, ‘We’ve had the conversation back and forth, so let’s not sit here for an hour having an over and back about it.’”

Meanwhile, Maher said that full equality for camogie and Ladies’ Gaelic Football will only come when the associations are integrated into the GAA.

“Until the Camogie Association and the LGFA are part of that, definitely on an inter-county front it’s more difficult to get that equality.”

However, she said that at club level, many are “operating under a one-club structure” where all players have equal access to pitches and resources.

“There’ll be challenges but it’s just about having an open conversation about where the challenges are, where the barriers are and how we can get past them.”

Written by Diarmuid Pepper and posted on TheJournal.ie