Sexism in Sport: 'I was absolutely gobsmacked. It made me really mad' - Katrina Parrock
Katrina Parrock won four Camogie All-Irelands with Wexford.
Player of the match in the 2010 decider, she contributed goals in two of those deciders.
A four-time All Star, there is the quartet of Ashbourne Cup medals from her college days and she played the starring role in earning three of them.
Turn the page to the chapter on football and there is a crucial role two years ago when a deft finish just after the half-hour and a key all-round performance for Wexford Youths against Peamount United secured the FAI Cup.
Added to that are the two Women's National League medals and a pair of Champions League campaigns.
Now playing with Terenure Rangers in Dublin where she lives and works, it's a level of success attained through her talent and a dedication that constantly prompted a reach into her own pocket to pay for fuel and a myriad of other associated expenses.
There were times when she needed to hold down two jobs to keep the show on the road.
But this, unfortunately, is not the story we are telling here.
It was late last month when her brother posted a memory on social media and triggered something buried in the back of her mind.
Parrock was injured this broiling hot day when Wexford were playing in Nowlan Park and TV cameras picked her up on the pitch.
Acting as a water carrier, she was wearing a cast on her arm, a pair of denim shorts and a tank top.
Everyday attire, though not the type a viewer would normally see on the field of play.
The clip appeared on The Sunday Game that night and then one website posted something labelled 'GAA pin-up girl 2013'.
That's when the comments started online. The page in question has since been removed but Parrock revisited all this in a tweet three weeks ago, making clear that she was “absolutely disgusted” by some of the comments lurking beneath.
General sexism was how she describes many of them.
No-holds barred postings zeroing in on her appearance. Lewd suggestions. All from men typing whatever they like from wherever they happened to be before going on blithely with their day.
Roughly 1,400 people liked her message calling out this sort of behaviour.
Plenty wrote responses in support. Others couldn't figure out what the problem and the offence was, or questioned why this was an issue seven years after the fact.
More again, as is so often the case on social media, seemed to misunderstand the point made or veered off on a tangent.
Typical internet: some good, some bad, too much of it ugly.
More than one pointed out that her own mother had given an interview back in 2013 suggesting her daughter's looks be used to promote the game, but Liz Parrock also insisted it was skills that should always be paramount.
Too often, still, female sportswomen are viewed through the prism of their appearance, their athletic identity dismissed or demeaned when it should be front and centre.
“Seven years ago, I was in a bubble,” Parrock explains now.
“Lots of things went on that I would have just ignored because I was there to reach my goals that I had set out and I was unaware of everything that was going on around me at the time.
"I was absolutely gobsmacked and it made me really, really mad.”
Among those unable to understand this was one poster who suggested she should be flattered. Imagine.
This wasn't one bad day or week. She is still getting messages about her appearance. From complete strangers. That's not okay.
It's not a bit of fun or an innocent compliment. It's creepy and plain wrong.
“I got one just the other day to say 'oh, you were an unbelievable hurler and you are so fine'. You know that kind of thing?
"I just choose to ignore them but some people find it hard to ignore it. I'm used to it now that I don't give it any thought.
"Like, my friends would absolutely go berserk at people thinking they can get away with that but I just get on with it.”
Parrock describes herself as a strong character. It's just as well. Too often female sportspeople have to be.
Not to ship a bad tackle, or step up and take a critical penalty, but to deal with unwanted trolling or abuse from complete strangers who so often can press send while hiding behind a cloak of anonymity.
A BBC survey of elite sportswomen in the UK has found that 30% have been trolled on social media.
That's a shocking statistic but is anybody really, well, shocked?
More concerning again is that this has doubled in just five years. It's a sobering state of affairs given what we thought was the progress made by women in sports in recent times.
Parrock, for one, had hoped that society was shedding this particularly odious skin.
There are no analyses matching the scope of the BBC's in an Irish context.
Opinions on the extent of social media abuse or trolling of elite female athletes here differs depending on who you talk to but Parrock feels it must be “quite common” and there are other examples.
Amid the outpouring of good vibes for Stephanie Roche when she was nominated for Fifa's goal of the year in 2014 was a trickle of bile and ignorance, most notably the foul-mouthed grunt who threatened to kill 69 children if she won the award.
All for being a woman in what some seem to think should remain a man's corner of the world.
Roche admitted in an interview with Liam Mackey of this paper some months later that there was at least one occasion when the sight of another tweet riddled with misogyny caught her by surprise and hit her for six.
Cork camogie player Hannah Looney explained three years ago how this abuse can ripple outwards too.
Looney's crime was to shove Kilkenny's Collette Dormer in the pre-match parade at the 2016 All-Ireland final.
It was only when she turned on her phone when she realised what this had unleashed.
“It was horrible afterwards,” she explained, “not so much for me but for my family. They took it fairly badly, seeing all the online abuse.”
It's a disease that spills in too many directions with Gina Ake-Moses among those Irish athletes who have been subjected to racist abuse on social media.
What can be done? Plenty of sportspeople, male and female, have asked why social media accounts couldn't be verified. Nobody is holding their breath on that.
One of Parrock's reasons for speaking out last month was how this state of affairs might be digested by young female athletes coming up through the ranks.
Together with her business partner Sinead O'Callaghan, she has founded Femstrive25, an initiative promoting female role models for the next generation.
Among the high-profile athletes on board so far are Dublin footballer Noelle Healy, rugby referee Joy Neville, and former Cork footballer Valerie Mulcahy.
It's in the early stages for now but the hope is that they can build a movement that can reach into the corporate world, colleges and schools.
“That's why I'm behind making this a point and making sure it doesn't happen again,” says Parrock.
“It's not okay for people to comment the way they did.”
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