Sinéad Wylde targets landmark Cuala camogie victory before Páirc trip for Irish international
Sinead Wylde fires a point for Dublin. Picture: INPHO/David Ribeiro
Plenty of players all around Ireland are preparing for county finals this weekend, but Sinéad Wylde is taking it one step further.
On Wednesday night she picked up a Dublin Senior B football medal thanks to Cuala’s 2-7 to 0-9 win over Na Fianna, and tomorrow she hopes to add the camogie equivalent when she pulls on the red jersey to take on Lucan Sarsfields.
If Cuala can pick up what would be a landmark victory, it would be a high-water mark for a club that has come all the way up from camogie’s Junior Four level since starting 12 years ago.
Working in athlete development and representation in the GPA, it emerges that much like supporters might look at a player with quick wrists or fluid movement and say they’re bred for this, the same could be said of Wylde when it comes to advocacy.
Health and Performance Science was her area of study when in UCD, but growing up in a family that was part of the Blaney political dynasty in Donegal meant that she shared the same instincts for advocacy and politics.
“Between Neal, Neil T, Harry and Niall, I think this is the first Dáil that hasn’t had one of the family, and they were some of my Granny’s siblings,” says Wylde. “With any family in politics, they’re the ones that are elected but the whole family ends up involved!
“Then my mum (Joanne O’Halloran) was heavily involved, she was Head of Sports in Trinity College and helped to set up a Women in Sport policy years ago, before that was trendy. Advocacy has always been in the family.”
She doesn’t rule out continuing the political tradition, but thankfully for Dublin camogie supporters, her medium-term future still lies on the field.
While the 2026 campaign felt like a regression, with Dublin narrowly escaping a shock relegation, Wylde gives a more confident answer when asked if she expects to win an All-Ireland senior camogie medal to go with the football one she picked up with Dublin in 2023.
“I'd hope so, yeah. I'm only 26 so I'd hope to have a good few more years left. We're definitely going in the right direction, and you can tell that the general standards have gone up, we’ve brought in some really good marquee players in the last few years and it’s just a question of getting the culture and mindset right, and I think that’s changing for the better too.”
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After breaking onto the camogie team while still in UCD, Wylde switched her focus to the big ball code and immediately noticed a different approach to the game from the leaders in that dressing room, citing the influence of Carla Rowe, Hannah Tyrrell, Lyndsey Davey and others.
“It was a different mindset than I would have previously seen in teams, and they're some of the best players to have ever played the game so I definitely learned a lot from them in terms of constantly trying to better yourself and the players being so essential to bringing the team on and bringing everything together.”
Wylde feels that when it comes to the external structures around resourcing, strength and conditioning and all the other external supports, Dublin camogie has bridged the gap with the ladies football side, but that she wants the camogs to share the same “bigger vision”.
“The footballers, over the last 10-15 years, have built this team that everyone growing up wants to be a part of. Everyone knows about them and even though they haven't had the same performances in some of the last few years they're still a really sought-after team that's operating at a really high level, whereas in the Camogie, we're trying to build to that but we're not there yet.”
After her Cuala season comes to an end tomorrow, there is one more box to be ticked before her focus will return to Dublin’s preparation for 2027.
Wylde has been named by Ireland manager Ger Manley as part of the panel for the upcoming Shinty-Camogie international against the Women’s Camanachd Association of Scotland at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Cork, on Saturday, October 24.
It’s not her first experience with the compromise code, though it was a very different thing the last time she was involved, in comparison with the celebration of both sports that is expected to unfold in a fortnight.
“In 2017, I was a teenager playing with the Dublin Premier Juniors. Back then they used to just send a Dublin team for some reason, so they sent a mixture of the Dublin Premier Juniors and the Seniors to Inverness on a tiny plane! We played against Scotland. To be honest, I barely even remember the actual game, but it was a bit of craic. There was no training or trials or anything involved, it was just a question of ‘Who’s around?’ That was my last taste of shinty.”
This time around, excitement has built up all across the country, as open invitations gave players with the most interest a chance to put their hands up.
“The last few Saturdays in Abbotstown, we had trials. It was class, there was four Monaghan players, a Donegal player, it was really cool just to get to play with people from all different counties that you'd never come up against in the championship.
“I was chatting to one of the Monaghan girls and she was saying it's like the first time in 15 years that Monaghan had put in a camogie team, they were absolutely buzzing and they just wanted to wear their gear for the whole year.
“We have two more sessions and then the game,” she said, citing how the time is needed to adjust to the different rules, particularly not being able to catch the ball.
"It does take a bit of getting used to, you've been bred into playing it one way and then you're trying to do something different.
“It’s definitely easier to be a back than a forward. The back can just whack the ball downfield and go after it, the forward you have to control it, turn, then flick it up to try to get a shot away.”
Wherever she is deployed, it is clear that on and off the pitch, Sinéad Wylde is perfectly cut out for it all right.
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