REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE FIRST LADIES GAA ALL-STARS AWARDS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE FIRST LADIES GAA ALL-STARS AWARDS CITYWEST HOTEL, DUBLIN
A dhaoine uaisle. Is mór an chúis áthais dom teacht i bhúr láthair anseo anocht don ocáid iontach seo do Chumann Peil Gael na mBan agas táim cinnte go mbainfimis go léir sult agus taitneamh as a bheith anseo.
It is a real pleasure to join you all this evening on this historic milestone - the first formal awards ceremony for the Ladies All-Stars. These Awards are hugely important because they give due and proper recognition to the enormous contribution made to Gaelic games by women from every corner of this island. Tonight the spotlight widens beyond the image of men and boys so often conjured up wherever two or more gather to discuss our national games. In that widened spotlight we see clearly the true picture of sporting life in Ireland, and in that picture the role of women is gathering huge momentum.
Oscar Wilde once quipped that “Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but it is hardly suitable for delicate boys”. I’m not sure I’d use the term ‘rough’ but any one who watched the Ladies Football Final just a few short weeks ago between Mayo and Dublin could rightly say that these women were ‘tough.’ They had to be to make it through the gruelling months of training and the rigours of each match to represent their county and their Province on Final Day in Croke Park. It is no easy journey as many of you know only to well, the commitment is absolute, the outcome is always precarious. Until recent times there was very little serious public recognition of the huge advances being made by Ireland’s lady footballers but now all the hard work is paying off, for this has undoubtedly been a superb year for Ladies Gaelic Football. That All-Ireland Final on the 5th of October was attended by a record breaking thirty thousand people and watched on TG4 by nearly two hundred thousand more - clear, hard evidence that the profile and popularity of Ladies Gaelic Football has shifted into a new gear and the best is yet to come.
Mayo emerged of course as champions yet again winning their fourth title in five years, a truly remarkable and well-deserved achievement. Some of you may know that a certain lady footballer from Laois has a strong connection to the Áras so I better be careful to appear neutral on the question of a Mayo three in a row - after all Captain Sue Ramsbottom is a trained soldier aside from being an All Ireland winner and a former All-Star. She is also the person who coined a new term - when everyone else was talking of “back-doors” in the men’s football championship - Sue preferred to bring the women through the “patio door”.
Who do we thank for the staggering levels of participation in Ladies Gaelic Football? How did it come about that participation tripled in the past five years and that more than eighty-five thousand members are involved in eighty clubs across the country? The answer is simple - you did it. Your faith, your fidelity, your love of this game has brought it out from shadows right into the mainstream. You have given it a new future, an exhilarating and exciting future. That is good news not simply for Gaelic games but for families, schools, parishes, communities, counties and for our country because it is a huge investment in civic strength. The game of women’s Gaelic football, like every sport, needs its ambassadors, its heroes and heroines, its leaders and champions. They are the source of the inspiration that brings each generation into the game and keeps them there through the hard grind of training, the days of triumph and the days of heart-breaking failure. Tonight we salute those who have been selected from a superb field of first-class athletes to be 2003’s special ambassadors. They are entitled to take immense pride in this historic achievement and we are entitled to take immense pride in them.
My daughter Emma played Gaelic football for Rostrevor and lobbied for its introduction in her school. I blame myself that she subsequently apostatised to rowing. During her playing days she banned me from the sideline for certain innocuous comments that were obviously misconstrued and she regards me as a pure menace to the game. But like me, she is thrilled to see Ladies Gaelic Football take its rightful place in the sporting spotlight.
I would like to thank Helen O’Rourke for her very kind invitation and for all she has done to promote the role of women in Gaelic games. Hard work through hard times is at last paying off.
I congratulate everyone involved in making this evening so special and such a success - the Ladies Gaelic Football Association, sponsors TG4 and O’Neills. May the winners continue to make us proud as they showcase the joy, the fun, the unique genius that is only found in and through sport.
Go maire sibh. Go raibh míle maith agaibh.