Fiona O'Driscoll forever a key cog in Cork's camogie chain

Cork's Fiona O'Driscoll and Olivia Brodrick of Galway. Picture: ©INPHO/Lorraine O'Sullivan

Ger Manley was helping Fiona O’Driscoll sift through the wreckage of her destroyed bike shop when the conversation went sideways.

The conversation went to camogie. Ger Manley was the new Cork manager. One of the first teams he had ever coached was the Fr O’Neill’s senior camogie side back in 2001. A team O’Driscoll had been the central cog of.

Manley was putting together his backroom team for 2024. He wanted O’Driscoll to be a cog in his sideline operation. The invitation was accepted, even if, at the time, her plate was overflowing.

O'Driscoll is co-owner of Cork Bike Hire, a bike rental business based across Cork city, Midleton, and Youghal. On October 18, their Midleton premises, along with hundreds more businesses and homes in the town, was submerged by flooding.

Storm Babet brought a month’s rainfall in 24 hours. Storm Babet brought upheaval, damage, and destruction.

Fiona and her wife, Deirdre, were in the shop the day the water started flowing in the front door. Whatever was sitting on the bottom shelf they moved onto the next shelf up. When the water rose further, they repeated the process to a higher shelf.

For a finish, no shelf was high enough. The water was chest high. Submerged beneath the flood were standard bikes, electric bikes, and all the equipment that went with them. Everything was damaged and lost. Three vehicles out the back were beyond retrieval.

Looking back, O’Driscoll knows they were silly to stay in the shop as long as they did. When they did eventually attempt to wade out the front door, they had to be assisted by one of the many rescue crews that had landed into the East Cork town.

Deirdre Roberts and Fiona O’Driscoll surveying the damage at their bike hire shop. Picture: Neil Michael.

“Sure we were foolish, we stayed in way too long,” O’Driscoll recalls.

“You were lifting stuff up to the next shelf thinking this is going to stop soon, but it didn't. Wasn't thinking right, really, should have come out a lot sooner.

“As we were coming out, we were finding it difficult because the water was just so high. We were able to see some of the rescue crowd coming down the street, so they came in and gave us a hand out. Ultimately, we were fine.

“I learned through this that they don't allow people to walk on their own through flooding because there are manholes and if one of them lifts, people can go down, so that is why they walk around with sticks and support people out of these unfortunate situations.” 

October 18 was a whirlwind of emotions. For O’Driscoll, personally, frightening was not one of them.

“I am just the kind of person that whatever I am doing, I am stuck in it, I'm in the moment, and it is afterwards when you think about it, you think that was foolish or that could have been more serious than it was.

“Look, it was frightening for older people that were in their homes on their own and had to maybe be brought out their upstairs window because they had gone upstairs. Children in the schools were not able to get home. They were people that were frightened.

“And there are lots of people still frightened because if this happens again, they don't feel protected because the flood defences and stuff that are due are a long way down the line still.” 

In reflecting on the day, O’Driscoll is so tuned in to the human cost as against the business cost. No price can be put on the former.

Cork Bike Hire reopened in Midleton in March. They are back up on the saddle and pedaling. There are families not as fortunate, families whose homes are not yet ready to be lived in once again.

“We have a business there and live there too, but thankfully our house was okay. For a lot of people living in the area, they are living in part of their house or they are not back in their house at all. So we do talk about our business, but I am more aware of the difficulties of people in their homes and the impact it has had on children.

“Like so many at the end of the town where we are based, there's no insurance cover because that part of town had been flooded previously, but thankfully through Government funding and humanitarian aid through Red Cross, that was helpful to get us back going.”

After 17 years away, Manley’s invitation got her back going on the inter-county front. The six-time All-Ireland winner retired in 2003. She wasn't out of the Cork dressing-room for very long. Ahead of the 2005 campaign, then manager John Cronin asked her to come in and oversee the fitness work. When the early season fitness work was done, Cronin asked her would she now oversee the coaching.

She broke new ground as a female coach operating at senior inter-county level. Camogie was and remains a game played by women and largely managed by men. O’Driscoll and fellow trailblazers of that time such as Denise Cronin, Stellah Sinnott, and Ann Downey were anything but the accepted norm.

In O’Driscoll’s three years as coach, Cork reached three All-Irelands and won two. From there, she would do three years as chairperson of the Camogie Association’s National Coaching Development Committee.

 Cork camogie Player Fiona O'Driscoll recieves her Vodafone Player of the Month award for October Picture: ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy

Her background as a PE teacher meant she was coaching teams in the club and at school while still playing. She can remember attending foundation level coaching courses, some of them given by John Allen, where female compatriots were hard found.

“I don't dwell on these things too much,” she replied when asked about the importance of providing a female sideline presence at a time when such presence was in minimal existence.

“Maybe afterwards it is pointed out to you alright that there aren't too many female coaches at that level, and probably isn't now either. There are huge demands now. I am looking at the level of it now, and I would still have a lot to learn to be a more senior coach within the set-up from where I was back along because I haven't had that development in the last number of years.

“People have to want to take it on and have the confidence to take it on. There are a lot of pressures with it too, and maybe it just doesn't suit everybody, and that goes for men or women.” 

She says her title within the current Cork camp is “selector/bit of helping out”. Manley says she has brought a “new emphasis” and “different ideas”.

O’Driscoll has been attending the concluding day of the camogie championship since 1986. She went first as a spectator, then a player, then a leading player, then as a coach, back to a spectator, and now back on the sideline.

“I love going to Croke Park on All-Ireland final day, it doesn't matter in what capacity. Been asked a few times over the years to get involved, but things just fell for me this year. Delighted to get the opportunity. It is a privilege to be involved.”