Walking on air as the magnificent women of St Jude’s win GAA glory

Máire

I first met Máire on the day we moved into our new home in Dublin. She called at the door with a bunch of flowers but in that moment, I was much more interested in the contents of the double buggy she was pushing. Twin girls, who looked to be around the same age as The Boy.

So I was glad she was my neighbour, but it was a little while longer before I knew Máire would be my friend. That was when we were in her kitchen, watching the three toddlers systematically dismantle the furniture, and I commented on how the door of her washing machine had become detached from its moorings. Sometimes, she told me, after they’d had a few drinks, she and her husband would put the washing machine door on their heads and pretend to be doing a moonwalk. If we’d never had a single other thing in common, that would have sealed the deal for me.

But we did. Máire had grown up in a GAA family and like myself, she’d put up a fair bit of mileage following the Dubs. But unlike this blow-in, the local club had been the backdrop of most of Máire’s life.

Our children got older and Máire’s four long-legged daughters turned naturally towards athletics. All our girls would eventually handle Gaelic footballs, but back then, progressing through the club nursery to juvenile football teams was still a road mainly travelled by boys. So while the twins were limbering up around running tracks, The Boy started playing football, my family joined the GAA club and many happy days shouting on the sidelines and nights being a smart alec in the club quiz nights followed. His interest in playing Gaelic football waned when he was still at minor level and the same time as Máire’s girls began kicking balls. Do I need to mention that in the meantime, The Boy and The Twins had bonded for life? Or that our last football away trip, just before the world shut down, ended up with Máire, myself, The Boy and The Twins disco dancing in a nightclub in Westport at 3am?

Ernest

Ernest is Máire’s dad. When I pass his house, Ernest is often sitting outside on his walking frame and I stop so we can talk about the GAA. He likes talking about The Twins and The Boy but he loves talking about the GAA. Dublin, Kerry, county boards, crazy decisions. And Jude’s. Always Jude’s. Forty-five years ago, St Jude’s GAA Club was just a twinkle in Ernest’s eye. With a young family in a sprawling new parish, he reached out to a couple of other like-minded locals and a new GAA club was registered. A few years ago, you probably wouldn’t have heard of Jude’s. But decades of seed and spade work have brought a rich harvest. We are in danger of becoming the Mayo of the senior football championship, having lost more finals in recent years than is strictly decent. We gave the county Kevin McManamon and Danny Sutcliffe — you’re welcome — and we gave the country and West Brom Dara O’Shea. There have been under-age trophies and a camogie county title and beyond that, we didn’t dare dream. And Ernest isn’t getting any younger. Last summer, we celebrated his birthday in Kerry. And because even 90-year-old men can dream, I sometimes wondered if Ernest ever privately asked what fates had conspired to give him six granddaughters before he finally got four young boys.

Aoife

She is limping, as she walks over to lift the cup. We didn’t notice her taking a knock, late in the second half, and she brushes it off lightly. She makes an eloquent speech, then she thrusts the cup towards the heavens, All Ireland champions at last. And you look around, at Ernest, on his walking frame, tears dissolving into his mask, watching his granddaughter lift the first ever national trophy for the club he started. And at Máire, who helped form this team years ago, back when being a female Gaelic footballer was still a novelty.

Tomorrow there will be time to ask why the men’s but not the women’s junior football final was in Croke Park? Why the cup we drink out of tonight is so cheap you could probably fold it in two? Why the president of the LGFA is a man and women’s representation in the GAA continues to be hopelessly inadequate? But that is for tomorrow. Today, we think of family, community, the parish, and all the magnificent women in whose strong hands the storied legacy of the GAA will be secure for generations to come.

Today, we walk on air.