Cork sisters Ciara and Doireann O'Sullivan call time on inter-county careers

Ciara O'Sullivan is the last Cork player to captain the county to All-Ireland ladies football glory.

CALLING IT A DAY: Cork sisters Ciara and Doireann O'Sullivan have both retired from inter-county football. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Cork footballers Ciara and Doireann O’Sullivan have both retired from the inter-county game.

Ciara, who joined the Cork senior panel in 2008, steps away as an eight-time All-Ireland winner. She is also the last Cork player to captain the county to All-Ireland ladies football glory, that in 2016.

Across her 16 seasons in red, the hard-running half-forward collected five All-Star awards. The most recent of those individual gongs came just last year, signifying that the 33-year-old steps away at a time when she was still a leading figure both in the dressing-room and on the field.

LEGEND: Marie Hickey, President, LGFA, presents the Brendan Martin Cup to Cork captain Ciara O'Sullivan after the 2016 Ladies Football All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

She was by a distance Cork’s most impressive performer during their All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Dublin last July and had picked up the Player of the Match crystal in their quarter-final win over Armagh a fortnight earlier.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner ahead of that All-Ireland semi-final, Ciara O’Sullivan revealed that she had been close to stepping away last year because of bulging discs and the wear and tear of a decade-and-a-half on the road at the highest level.

Doireann O'Sullivan, who had been part of the Cork panel since 2012, retires as a five-time All-Ireland. The 2018 All-Star had suffered a number of knee injuries in recent years. 

News of the retirements comes as bad news to a Cork set-up sitting at the bottom of the Division 1 league table with just one win from five outings. Their next game, on Saturday week, is away to All-Ireland champions Dublin.