'Like taking five or six Limerick hurling starters out' but new leaders emerging for Cork camogie says McCartan
NEW LEADER: Cork’s Sorcha McCartan pictured ahead of the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Camogie Championship semi-final. Pic: ©INPHO/James Crombie
Cork were on the cusp of three-in-a-row. They were unbeaten in 17 All-Ireland championship games. They were reigning League champions. They were favoured to go where no Cork camogie team had gone in 53 years.
August 10 of last year was supposed to be the afternoon their greatness was enshrined. It was the afternoon they would become a generational force. It was the afternoon they would colour completely red the game’s outstanding rivalry between themselves and Galway.
Fast forward to February 21 of this year. Antrim of all counties had come to Bishopstown and inflicted a second successive League defeat on the hosts.
No three-in-a-row was ever achieved. They never ascended to generational status. One-third of that beaten All-Ireland final team - Laura Treacy, the Mackey twins, Aoife Healy, and Hannah Looney - either retired or signed up to the AFLW during the off-season.
21 All-Stars and 28 All-Ireland medals gone out of the dressing-room in one devastating swoop.
There was then the elbow injury to another key pillar, Ashling Thompson, which threatened to remove the midfielder from the red conversation for most of 2026.
From near untouchable to dethroned and thrown into a rebuild.
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Cork entered the final round of League action in danger of being relegated to the second tier. They entered and swiftly exited the Munster championship, Tipp comprehensively besting them at the quarter-final juncture.
Cork camogie wasn’t so much spiraling as it was temporarily lost. The lurch from what they thought would be a four-in-a-row bid to an almighty dip in form had utterly disarmed them.
Inside Cork forward Sorcha McCartan starts with the personnel stepped away and charts their turbulent year from there.
“To lose those players is massive because that's like taking five or six of the Limerick hurling starters out and you're left with people that don't have much exposure to these games or much experience, so it was always going to be difficult,” begins the Down native.
“We had a panel there, we had to work with what we had, and it's not that anyone's any less talented than the girls that have left, but they just aren't as experienced.
“It was just about getting as much exposure to big games and hard training sessions. For a lot of girls, it was about trying to step up as best we can and lead that, lead the standards at training.
“Look, there are still voids. Those players are irreplaceable. They're iconic. But for us, it's been about building slowly and trying to get confidence into every player on the pitch.”
Confidence and victories came at crawling pace. Four of their opening six games in 2026 ended in defeat.
“There obviously was a panic within the group. Maybe it went unspoken, but management, in fairness, have always told us that they believed in us. No matter if we were doubting ourselves or having harsh conversations, they never ever doubted us or doubted what we could do. We reaped the rewards obviously with our All-Ireland round-robin games,” continued the 25-year-old.
“We had to grow and evolve. A lot of players that maybe weren't ready had to take on leadership roles and a lot of players that maybe didn't see themselves starting are now starters, have got an opportunity, and have proven themselves en masse.
“So look, it has been a completely different year to any year that I've been involved, or any year that anyone in this panel has been involved. But that’s the challenge you want.”
The corner was turned at Kenny Park, Athenry. The crowd who ended Cork’s three-in-a-row bid and maybe fast-tracked an off-season departure or two were bullied and beaten in their own backyard.
Cork were back. Or rather, new-look Cork had arrived. That much was absolutely certain.
“We trained for six weeks unbelievably hard beforehand, we got really fit, and I think the question was asked, was Cork camogie finished? Was that it? Was that it over? Were we going to end our year without trying? And I think we just went into that Galway game fearless and kind of backed ourselves. Threw the shackles off. It just took one performance to build a bit of momentum.”
McCartan’s memories of that June 6 season-starter and season-turner focus more on the journey than what they produced at the destination.
“On the bus up, I could feel there was a difference in energy. Getting back on after the stop in Ennis, I knew there was a shift. In the changing room, it was more serious than usual. No joking, everyone was locked in.”
Waterford and Tipp were subsequently downed. Cork finished atop Tier 1. Ava Fitzgerald, Isobel Sheehan, and Millie Condon are growing in those earlier mentioned voids. They’re 60 minutes from a sixth successive All-Ireland final appearance.
Should we ever have doubted them?
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