17 November 2003 Speech by President of Ireland Mary McAleese at the Ladies Gaelic Association All-Star Banquet Share this Article 0 0 0 Shares! 0 Shares! Speech by President of Ireland Mary McAleese at the Ladies Gaelic Association All-Star Banquet “It is just a joy to be here on what is an historic night probably one of the most historic nights in the history of our sporting culture in Ireland. The first formal award ceremony for the ladies Allstars and let me tell you there is a certain amount of controversy in our house tonight, with me being here at all. I am going to start with a confession and my confession is this my daughter Emma played football with Rostrevor and she banned me from the sideline because of certain words I was accused of saying, that are clearly misunderstood and she subsequently apostatised to rowing and she tells me the reason she did this was very simple she was pretty sure that I could not walk on water. She told me before I came out that it was a pure menace to the game and I hope you accept this in the spirit that it was intended. All those words on the sideline were meant to encourage not to discourage. These awards I believe, with a great passion, are hugely hugely important, because they give due and proper recognition to the enormous contribution made to Gaelic games from women of every corner of this Island. Tonight the spotlight widens as it should, well beyond the image, so often of men and boys who gather to discuss our National games, in the wider spotlight we see clearly the true picture of sporting life in Ireland In that picture we see the role of women gathering what we can describe, a huge huge momentum. Is there any other game in Ireland with the potential that his game has? I doubt it. Oscar Wilde once quipped that football was, very well as a game for rough girls, but it is hardly suitable for delicate boys. I’m not sure if I would use the term rough, for certainly anyone who watched that ladies football final just a few short weeks ago between Mayo and Dublin could rightly say. ‘these women are tough, they are dressed up magnificently here tonight and I don’t know would you want to meet them under a dropping ball. They had to be tough to make it through the gruelling months of training, the rigours of each match to get to represent their Co, to represent their Province, to get to All-Ireland final day in Croke Park, it is no easy journey as all of you know only too well. The commitment is absolute and the outcome is always precarious, it is always in doubt right until the final whistle, and until recent times it is true to say, that there was very little serious public recognition of the huge advances that were being made in Ireland, by our lady footballers. Now at last all the hard work is paying off, for this has undoubtedly been a superb year of Ladies Gaelic football. That All-Ireland final on the 5th of October was attended by a record 30,000 people and watched on TG4 by nearly 200,000 more. Clear hard evidence that the profile, the popularity of this game has shifted into a completely new gear, and we think here tonight we know the best is yet to come. Mayo of course emerged as champions yet again winning their 4th title in 5 years a truly remarkable and well deserved achievement. I have to be careful of what I say here because you may know that accompanying me here on the stage is a certain lady footballer from Laois with a very strong connection with Arás an Uachtaran so I have to be neutral, on the subject of Mayo’s three in a row. Capt Sue Ramsbottom is not only a trained soldier aside from being an All-Ireland winner, a former AllStar She is also the person who recently on radio coined a very new term when everyone else was talking about the backdoors in the mens football championship Sue preferred to bring the women through the patio door. The good news for Mayo, is that Capt Sue Ramsbottom is retiring they bad news for them is that Capt Sue Burke is back in the game again and some of you may know she married Dermot Burke a few short weeks ago and she even managed to get Dermot here tonight. Before he married he was not much of a football supporter, so yo can see the big change that has taken place already. So who do we say thank you for the staggering growth of participation in ladies Gaelic football. How did it come about that participation tripled in the past 5 years and now that there are 85,000 members around the country. I guess the answer is very simple, you the people in this room, you did it step by step over many years, patience and push, and that is how we have arrived at this remarkable nigh tonight. Your faith your fidelity your love of this game has brought it out from the shadows into the main stream, you have given it a future an exhilarating and exciting future and that is good news, not simply for Gaelic games but for families for schools for parishes for communities for counties for our country. It is a huge investment in our civic strength, it is a huge dynamic injection into our culture. The game of women’s Gaelic sport like every sport it needs its ambassadors it needs its heroes, and heroines it needs its leaders and its champions they are the people who provide the inspiration, that brings each new generation into the game and keeps them there through all the hard days, the more difficult days, the days when there isn’t a night like this where you are out there and the rain is coming down and the snow is coming down, the hard days of training a hard day when the game is played and you walk off triumphant an d the harder day when you walk with your heads low, because you have to experience the heartbreak of failure. Tonight we salute those who have been selected from a superb field of first class athletes, to be the years 2003 special ambassadors they are entitled to take immense pride in this historic achievement, and we are entitled to tell them tonight that we take immense pride in them and their achievements I want to thank Helen O’Rourke, for the invitation that allows me to be part of this very special night despite my daughters reservations about it. I want to thank Helen for all she has done for that patient way, she has doggedly promoted the role of women in gaelic games, hard work through hard times is at last paying off. I am thrilled to see Ladies gaelic Football take its rightful place in the sporting spotlight tonight I congratulate everybody involved in making this evening so special and indeed such a success. The Ladies Gaelic Football Association, the Sponsors TG4 and O’Neill’s and all of you who have turned out in such numbers and such style to show the faith, the belief, the enthusiasm, the heart you have for this game. May the winners continue to make us proud as they showcase the joy, the fun the unique genius that is found only in and through sport, and is found in a unique and special way in our gaelic games that we are so lucky to have. If one generation, if just one generation this fantastic heritage that we have, we wouldn’t have this night and I think women in particular have known years of struggle when it would have been easy to walk away and not hand on the baton to the next generation. From Tommy’s generation right through to today, people hand on that baton with care and each year they have seen it grow and I think we are at the start of something very special here tonight, and it is thanks to you, Gur raibh Míle, Míle, Maith agaibh go léir.” Share this Article 0 0