Dublin LGFA celebrates Forty years!

Dublin LGFA celebrates forty years today having been founded back on this date, 6th May 1985. To mark the occasion Daire Walsh interviewed Áine Keogh, the first Chairperson of Cumann Peil Gael na mBan Átha Cliath - Dublin LGFA.

INTERVIEW WITH ÁINE KEOGH

By Daire Walsh

The now-defunct Park Lodge Hotel on the North Circular Road was the venue on May 6, 1985 for the first-ever meeting of the Dublin ladies football county board.

Presided over by then LGFA President Pat Quill – a native of Castletownbere in Cork who had been living in his adopted county of Wexford for a number of years by that point – this gathering was also attended by 14 people who were spread across three different clubs in the capital. Alongside representatives from Robert Emmets and Park Rangers, there were six members of the Rathcoole club there on the night - namely Pamela Gibney, Eimear Clare, Eamonn Gilligan, Patricia Hickey, Theresa Kelly and Aine Keogh.

This inaugural meeting ended with the first Dublin LGFA committee being formed and it was Keogh who ultimately became the maiden Chairperson of the ladies board in the county.

Although she downplays the significance of being the first Chairperson, there is no denying that Keogh was in attendance for a significant event in the overall history of the Dublin LGFA.

“There was so few of us, somebody had to do it! There was a few girls that had been there from the start. Patricia Hickey would be one, Kathleen Kennedy, myself. Pauline Byrne from Rathcoole. It was just a case of a few of us having to put our names on paper. There was no big election or anything, I can assure you!” Keogh explained.

At the same meeting, Pat Quill had promised those in attendance that he would provide every assistance possible to help further the development of ladies football in Dublin.

A considerable amount of groundwork had already been laid by then and Keogh was heavily involved during the early years of the Dublin senior ladies team. The county set-up mostly consisted of players from the Rathcoole club initially, before the game gradually started to expand in the capital.

By 1986, there were five club teams operating in Dublin. Along with Rathcoole and the aforementioned duo of Robert Emmets and Park Rangers, UCD and Portbello were also competing in the league and championship in the Metropolitan county.

In 1985, Rathcoole had secured the first Dublin senior ladies football championship title courtesy of a final win over UCD at O’Toole Park.

Even though there wasn’t a competitive side in every county back then – despite the Ladies Gaelic Football Association having first been established in 1974 – Dublin were one of 10 teams that featured in the 1986 edition of the National Football League.

“Rathcoole and Dublin were all the one team. Then I think it was Robert Emmets that came on the scene. They set up a club and I think it just all took off from there at that stage. Then we had good days. We were training in the muck, changing in the muck and playing in the muck, but we had good times,” Keogh recalled.

“I think Cathal Kelly would have been our first manager. He certainly managed Rathcoole. So if he managed Rathcoole, he managed Dublin. We bought the gear, we washed it and we cleaned it. At the time, you had Westmeath, you had Laois, you had Cavan. You had Waterford. You had Kerry, who were obviously out of this world even back then.

“It was all kind of run by, what they called back then, Central Council, who met usually in Tullamore. We travelled up and down to that, Kathleen Kennedy and myself. Kathleen got married, then moved and played with Kerry. She lives down in Dingle. Kathleen did as much of setting up the team as I ever did. It was two-fold.”

When she reflects on the early days of the Dublin LGFA – and in particular her time as a footballer for both Dublin and Rathcoole – Keogh has nothing but fond memories.

“It was massive fun. We travelled to places and you’d have your bit of food afterwards. You’d have a bit of craic and you travelled home. Whoever drove at the time drove and the odd time we’d get a bus, and we’d have a meeting spot.

“You were against probably the same girls playing for Laois and Westmeath. One of the biggest clubs in Westmeath was Rochfortbridge. You kind of met the same girls all the time. It was a group of girls playing football, that’s all it was. We had a couple of different trainers and we had a couple of very good players.

“We trained in St Brendan’s grounds [in Grangegorman] for a couple of years and we then got a few more players. Actually, a couple of the girls from Dublin Castle soccer team joined us. There was one or two of them, they were talented players, but we all moved on and gave up the football. Kind of lost touch.”

Indeed, a couple of years after being the first Chairperson of the LGFA, Keogh handed over the reins to Brendan Dardis – who was later followed in the role by the likes of Elaine Carroll, Walter Galvin and Caroline Maloney.

These days, Keogh’s main sporting passion is golf and she hasn’t been actively involved in the LGFA for a number of years. Nonetheless, she keeps a close eye on the progress of the sport and is thrilled to see how it has evolved into its current position of strength.

At that inaugural Dublin LGFA meeting in 1985, National President Pat Quill outlined his hope that there would eventually be 32 counties competing in ladies football. This has long since been achieved, while overseas sides like London and New York have also featured competitively at the inter-county grade.

“It’s absolutely fantastic to see where it has come to. We had to, I won’t say get down on our bended hands and knees to try and get Croke Park for the first ever final [between Kerry and Wexford in 1986], but basically we did. There was a lot of effort put into it from all the counties involved at the time,” Keogh added.

“It’s just automatic now. It’s just put in the calendar. They’ve come an awful long way. It’s even the girls from the schools up now playing. 40 years ago, that just wasn’t done. It’s fantastic.”