Camán, all ye mammies, try camogie!

A popular scheme aims to get mothers involved in camogie by giving them a crash course in coaching skills, writes Helen O’Callaghan

IT’S an unusual thing to say to your eight-year-old daughter: “You’ve got a smelly belly.” However, the phrase is slang in camogie circles for ‘turn the hurley outwards to catch the ball, not inwards’.

Mother-of-three Caroline Fitzgerald is among 250 mums nationwide who have participated in Mum & Me, a Camogie Association programme that has the women coaching their daughters in camogie skills. Yet, the 38-year-old part-time HSE worker had never played camogie or even picked up a hurley until a few months ago.