'We never in our wildest dreams saw this coming' - Kerry camogie joint captains intertwined in unlikely success story

Patrice Diggin celebrates with teammates. Pic: ©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo.

The replies of Patrice Diggin and Jackie Horgan are strikingly similar. The replies are almost word for word identical.

Once Patrice and I have finished our conversation in the meeting room of the Lixnaw clubhouse, she volunteers to go and fetch the other Kerry camogie stalwart available for Friday evening interrogation.

A couple of minutes into our chat with Jackie, we ask if Patrice slipped her an answer sheet when out on the field fetching her. Was there maybe a preparatory Zoom call between the pair to ensure they were on the exact same page?

It is hardly a coincidence that they are both churning out the same answers when reflecting on the long road to Sunday. No matter what part of the winding backroad we stop at and tease out, their reflections are two mirrors held against one another.

“Sure we have lived the same life for 10 years,” Jackie smiles.

Kerry camogie is Patrice Diggin. Kerry camogie is Jackie Horgan. The 2025 joint-captains have been around the green and gold scene since almost day dot. Their identities are intertwined in an unlikely success story that the rest of us are all of a sudden interested in.

They were teenage kids lining out at midfield and full-forward respectively when Carlow whacked them in the 2015 second-tier All-Ireland junior final. They play their club camogie together, they play their club football together. They socialise together. They are the strongest of friends.

“As Patrice would say, sure what else would you be at in the evening only going training,” says Jackie, another smile shooting into view.

We all know what they are at presently. We know they are heading up the road for a first All-Ireland intermediate final appearance. We know they are one hour from a historic step-up to the senior grade. We know they are backboned by back-to-back All-Ireland intermediate club champions Clanmaurice.

We know they are well looked after because Patrice and Jackie arrive in for a chat dressed head-to-toe in Kerry training gear carrying their initials while an ice cream van parked outside the door is throwing out 99s to whoever wants one.

But what did Kerry camogie look like before anyone took notice of them, before there was need for open nights and the hired services of the Shannon Ices van? What did Kerry camogie look like from the bottom of the barrel?

“You were only probably comparing yourself to a Kerry footballer and sure they were getting the best of the best at the time, and we were only nearly laughing. If you got a jumper, it was a great day” begins Diggin, the 29-year-old part of the Kerry set-up for the past 12 years.

“You were lucky if you got a pair of socks at the start of the year, and that was it,” Horgan adds. “We went to training to go training, basically. We played because we loved it and because we were the best of friends.”

Kerry manager John Madden was Causeway club secretary in 2008. He remembers the pivotal roles played by Patrice and Kerry full-back Sara Murphy in helping the boys win the county U14 Féile.

“But when they started camogie, they'd be playing in side fields and getting changed in dressing-rooms where you'd hardly fit three in the room. They have gone through the hardship. They have seen it all,” he explains.

“They've gone from being lucky to get a gearbag to going all the way to getting the full set. They fought hard for that. They saw the bad times and wanted to make it better.”

Kerry's Jackie Horgan celebrates. Pic: ©INPHO/Leah Scholes.

Horgan didn’t play club camogie until she was 15. Two years later, she was at midfield in the aforementioned 2015 junior final. The thumping at Templetuohy continues to reside upstairs.

“I will never forget it. We got absolutely destroyed. I remember running around the pitch thinking, ‘what am I doing here’.

“When I was minor, we used to go up the country with 15 players, maybe 16. You might be ringing someone at 8am of a Sunday morning saying, the bus is leaving, we'll meet you on the way with the gearbag.”

They never complained or cursed their sorry environment simply because they knew no different. There was no adult club team for them when reaching the end of the underage ranks and so they all came from different corners to form Clanmaurice.

If you were a club player in Kerry, you were an inter-county one too. Everyone got on the bus. Quality was secondary, the ability to field the priority. They couldn’t afford to leave anyone behind, irrespective of how you gripped a hurley.

Other counties would baulk at a panel of 17 or 18 players. This was Kerry’s lived reality for years. It built them rather than broke them. Nine of the 2015 class are still showing up.

“There was a core group that just never gave up. We never knew any different than having the bare minimum. There'd be counties laughing at us, but we are probably closer than any of those teams. I know other teams will say they have a bond, but we have a bond,” says Diggin, her tone the Collins Dictionary definition of forceful.

“Kerry camogie is like one big family. No matter what I am doing, if I am going anywhere, it is, ‘are ye coming’.”

The friends forged a path for themselves. The friends paved a way for those coming after. They popularised Kerry camogie. Premier Junior finalists in 2018.

Champions a year later. Intermediate semi-finalists 12 months ago. Three League titles. Club domination. They became annual visitors to Croke Park. They packed silverware onto a team bus now at capacity. The recent semi-final programme contained 30 names spread across four clubs.

From one single adult club across an entire county, now senior status wearing Clanmaurice are joined at junior level by Cillard, Causeway, Killarney, and Tralee Parnells.

Indeed, such are the growing numbers in these clubs that the county board was able to run, concurrent to the inter-county season, a nine-a-side league for the four junior teams and all their adult players not inside in the Kerry dressing-room.

At underage, the numbers are stronger again. Abbeykillix (Abbeydorney, Kilflynn, and Lixnaw), Ballyduff, Causeway, Cillard (Kilmoyley and Ardfert), Killarney, Sliabh Luachra (Castleisland and surrounding areas) and Tralee Parnells have been joined this year by an eighth entity.

Ceann Mara, serving Kenmare and its hinterland, stands as the perfect example of the Kerry camogie board capitalising on the increased interest in their brand. Aware of local appetite to grow the game, the county board paid Kerry panelist Kate Lynch to go down and coach in the Kenmare schools for six weeks. From that, Ceann Mara was born.

“You are always trying something new,” says Kerry chairperson Ann-Marie Russell. “Last year we had an U13 school of excellence for those that didn't make the U14 county team. Six to 10 weeks of county-level training to keep the interest going and keep driving the standard.”

John Madden, who assumed the Kingdom reins midway through this year’s League, has a 14-year-old daughter. Team coach Aidan Boyle has two. They line out for Causeway and Ballyduff respectively.

The fathers are driven to show their daughters, their daughters’ friends, and every young girl in the county that Kerry camogie is about All-Ireland final Sundays in Croker and not the half promise of a free pair of shorts it once was.

“That is another motivating force for us in wanting to bring it to the next step, that the young girls can see that is the ambition you can hold if you are part of Kerry camogie.” John Barry is another member of management. His department is strength and conditioning. John was a member of the Kerry football backroom team during the return-to-the-summit 2022 campaign. That is the company and the quality the Kerry women now demand and expect.

Last words to Diggin and Horgan. Let’s make sure they are not identical.

Patrice is the intermediate championship’s leading contributor with 1-32 from four games. When she won three Ashbourne Cups with UL in the middle of the last decade, including player of the match in the ‘16 final, one guessed that would be the end of her exposure to top shelf camogie. She did herself.

“We never in our wildest dreams saw this coming. It comes down to the group of girls we have. Because we have had to fight for everything we have, nothing fazes us when things go wrong. We can just turn a blind eye and say to ourselves, sure we are used to things going wrong.”

The mic is handed to Jackie.

“A win on Sunday would be bigger for the people behind us more so than ourselves because it will keep the whole thing going.”

And one final pass to Patrice.

“Kerry camogie is safe for a long time.”