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By Niall Gartland
FROM small acorns mighty oaks grow. Camogie in Carrickmore lay dormant at the turn of the Millennium, but a sequence of events a few years later saw a revival of the sport and now they stand on the cusp of a historic All-Ireland title.
Present at a rather chilly training session in Loughmacrory last Wednesday evening was Bríd Uí Dhonnghaile, a native of Liatroim in Down and one of the leading driving forces behind camogie’s reformation in the Éire Óg club back in 2004.
In one sense, there was an element of happenstance about it all. In another, a burning passion for camogie needed sustenance.
First, there was the big move to Carrickmore.
“We were living up in Belfast for a while after we got married. My husband [Cathal] was involved in setting up new schools in the Irish Medium sector, and we always wanted to move to the countryside – the city wasn’t for us.
“We looked around and we thought mid-Ulster would be a good place to move. We rented a house in Cappagh in the late nineties before going to Carrickmore.
“Both myself and Cathal played hurling/camogie so it was natural that we wanted the same for our children. Our oldest girl was probably about 10, but there was nothing in Carrickmore at the time. There had been camogie in the late seventies and eighties but it had dwindled away.”
So the desire was there, but it took a discussion at a wake to formally light the touchpaper on the reestablishment of camogie in the club.
Uí Dhonnghaile added: “We got to know the Kerrs through the Irish Medium Education, they’re very involved in the club.
“Mickey Kerr passed away and we went to the wake. I went back home, I had to get the children to bed. Cathal stayed on, and got talking to Peter Kerr about the reformation of camogie, and that was that! I think the next Saturday, we had our first training session.
“Three of the girls in that first year are still playing on the team – Ciara Clarke, Tara Haughey and Leanne McKernan.”
“But anyway, that’s how it all started. For me it was largely personal – that I wanted my own children to have camogie.
“Annamarie Hughes, who was registrar in the club at the time, went around looking for children to get involved and it just grew from there.”
Uí Dhonnghaile cites the opening of Páirc Éire Óg in 2016 as a transformative moment and now, just under a decade later, they’ve won back-to-back titles at provincial level and are 60 minutes away from bringing an All-Ireland title back to the club.
“I suppose you could trace it back to getting our own pitch, and having a ball wall as well.
“We had our own identity at that stage, and with more people getting involved, we had that wee bit of success and that attracts more people.
“We persevered and we’ve found ourselves in a brilliant position. For a few years we were in a cycle of going up and going back down again, but we seem to be on an upwards trend now, and getting over Derrylaughan in this year’s Tyrone Intermediate final was a big one for us.”
