Rising Tide

IT was an unusual day to be in Croke Park. TG4 were there, launching this year’s Ladies Football Championship and everyone agreed what a great occasion it was.

The Taoiseach even dropped by, to say a few words and remark on the wonderful symbiosis that the relationship TG4 and Ladies Football has cultivated.

And benefits for both are plain to see. Over 175,000 people tuned in to watch Mayo tighten their grip on the title last year, TG4’s largest ever audience.

The station has also made strides in ensuring a good portion of the GAA public appreciate the skill levels in Ladies Football, with Monaghan’s Edel Byrne getting runner-up in the Goal of the Year competition last season.

Ladies Football is the fastest growing sport in this country, but despite the commendable efforts of TG4, media coverage of it remains minuscule. All 32 counties were represented at Croke Park a fortnight ago, a measure of how rapidly the game is growing, but media organs the next day tended to concentrate on Bertie’s photo op rather than the code itself.

This isn’t confined to Ireland or the GAA. Sportswomen tend to get a rough deal everywhere. Last week, the Ladies Snooker Champion Kelly Fisher announced she was considering a move to the US to play pool full-time after the sport’s governing body withdrew its funding of the women’s game.

And we all know about the Wimbledon prize-money fiasco, which saw a bra company stepping in to make up the £40,000 difference between the boys and the girls, for champion Serena Williams this year.

Women’s sport just isn’t taken as seriously as men’s. Are things changing?

GAA-wise things are certainly improving.

Camogie have started a new campaign, “Chicks with Sticks” and while some may snigger at the tag-line, it has seen some results while interest has exploded in Ladies Football. But for so long in the GAA, women were working behind the scenes, but were rarely seen in the upper levels of the Association. In Joe McDonagh’s time as President, he initiated an increased participation group to look at the problem and find a solution. Former Tipperary PRO Liz Howard, one of the few women to make it to the top of GAA officialdom, chaired that group. “Our basic remit was to look at ways and means of getting women more involved in the administrative level of the games. For a long time, 50% of the population were being ignored, not in any kind of malicious way, but just because there wasn’t enough being done to encourage women to become involved.”

Howard, of course, had a profile before working in the coal-face of the GAA, having spent three years as a Sunday Game analyst. That paved the way for her to be accepted as the Premier press officer in later years, but there was always one or two hardened attitudes to deal with.

“When I was first on the Sunday Game, acceptance only grew when people realised what I was talking about. Maybe, being reasonably well-known helped me gain acceptance, but there were still difficulties.

“What was surprising was that I grew up in a strong GAA household, my father had played for Limerick and always had a very inclusive view of men and women within the GAA. Now, I must say the vast majority of people I worked with were superb, but there was some who weren’t as progressive. And perhaps that is where the reluctance has come from for women to get involved.”

Although the landscape has changed, and is changing, things could still be better. Twelve years ago, Noreen Doherty became secretary of the Donegal county board, a position she still holds. Yet she still remains the only female county secretary in the country. That disappoints her.

“I find that disappointing, that there has been no other lady county secretaries since I took over in Donegal,” she says. “I have always been accepted in my role in Donegal, but there has always been a widespread representation of females in Donegal GAA clubs. When I became county secretary, it didn’t seem like any big deal.

“It might have looked unique outside the county, but I had been working in administration so long with the county board, that it seemed like a natural development.”

But it as not too natural to those stuck in their ways. As an example, she recounts one call from another official looking for the county secretary. She told him he was speaking to her. The man said he wanted the GAA county secretary.

Noreen had to insist four times she was the GAA county secretary.

“But that was a few years ago now. It is noticeable all over the country how much more women are involved in administration. It’s very noticeable in my own county, we have a number of female club secretaries which we didn’t have five or 10 years ago.”

Both Doherty and Howard believe the bunscoil games and Bord na nÓg have played a massive part in the increased profile of females at county and national level.

“I think it is often over-looked how significant the knock-on effect from Bord na nÓg level has been,” Doherty says.

“Because of the work done in all counties by that group, there is increased female participation in schools competition and as the girls grow up, they stay involved.”

Howard agrees: “I think a great initiative that has gone a long way to changing mind-sets is having both girls and boys involved in the bunscoil games before the big championship games. There isn’t a lot of difference between the standard in boys and girls at that level, and girls get the experience of playing on a big field on a big day.”

All the same, there are stumbling blocks to equality of participation on the administrative side. Despite the welcome change in Irish society over the past 30 years, many women still have to juggle raising a family and their job. Involvement with the GAA just consumes too much time for some.

“That is a stumbling block,” Doherty agrees. “The commitment and amount of time that has to be devoted to some of the roles is huge. At the very top level, the amount of time it takes in administration is gigantic. You have to be available seven nights a week sometimes and that is tough, especially if someone is a mother, has a young family, or even if they have an older family that still need looking after.”

BUT, times are definitely a-changing. Geraldine Giles was made President of the Ladies Football Association and is keen to shatter stereotypes. “We are not just the person at home washing the jerseys anymore. There is a certain element in certain areas still, where people would frown upon women’s involvement in GAA. But over the past five to 10 years, it has changed dramatically and it has been brilliant for our game.”

The waters remain stormy, however. Ladies Football germinated into the entity we know now, with a separate association. Ireland in 1974 was a different world, and the idea of women kicking ball obviously didn’t sit too well with many.

“When the game was founded, it was a different society,” Giles concurs.

“Irish society is a lot more liberal and open now, but 1974 was different. Most people didn’t see ladies playing Gaelic Football at the time. You had a few counties kicking the ball around, times have changed now. We can both grow if we are together.”

A merging of forces with the GAA is imperative if the female side of the sport wants its profile to rise even further. Doherty, who also sat on the increased participation group, says if their work is to succeed, camogie and Ladies Football must come under the Association’s umbrella.

“They need to be affiliated at grass-roots level, because the only way progress can be made in any association is at grass-roots level. It all needs to be under one umbrella. Certainly they both should retain it’s own autonomy. But at the moment, the sports are playing second fiddle to the male games because they are not part of the overall club structure. They have a separate county board, and it is a big difficulty. They have separate insurance, separate affiliation.

“The female players should be registered the same way as the male players, they should come under the same insurance scheme, they should be part of the same structure. Progress can only be made at grass-root level and people need to be involved at that level.”

Giles says that the Ladies’ organisations are currently working on a structure that will see them come under Croke Park’s umbrella by 2004-05.

“There is an awful lot of development work that has to take place, but hopefully we have plans for that over the next three to five years with a strategic plan in place. We hope to have development officers in some of the provinces. Part of our downfall is that a lot of our coaches are coming from volunteers, or from the GAA. There are coaches in some counties and we have several trained coaches up north, but we are trying to bring in right round the country.

“But that is in its infancy at the moment. The time has come when we need coaches who are specific to the Ladies game, whether they are male or female.”

That is in the future, which is looking rosy enough on the female side of the GAA. Next year, camogie will celebrate its centenary year. By then, the chicks with sticks campaign should be in full swing. And the Association can finally accept the two female sports as thriving parts of their entire spectrum.

Then, the sight of a group of ladies gathered in Croke Park mightn’t look quite so unusual.