Roisín O'Keeffe relishing Cavan camogie's latest comeback

By John Harrington

There’s always been a strong undercurrent of club camogie in Cavan but distilling it into the county colours has proven challenging over the years.

They didn’t compete in national senior inter-county competitions from 2011 to 2019 and then opted out again last year.

So, the fact that they’ll contest Sunday’s Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Premier Junior Final against Armagh is a fair turn-around in fortunes.

Cavan dual star Róisín O’Keeffe might be better known nationally for her exploits as a county footballer, but she’s always been just as committed to camogie whenever there’s been a county camogie team to commit to.

She can’t even remember when she made her county senior camogie debut, only that it was in the noughties and around the same time she played her first game of county senior football as a 14-year-old.

The prospect of pulling on a Cavan jersey again for an All-Ireland Final seemed impossible a few short months ago, but all the more thrilling for the Lacken woman now that it’s about to become reality.

“It's brilliant,” says O’Keeffe. “There's a great buzz about Camogie in Cavan again.

“Last year was very disappointing that we didn't field a senior team, especially for a lot of the older girls that were trying to keep it together.

“At the start of the year, I think it was maybe December or January time it was put out, but there were only about 10 or 11 who decided that they would commit.

“It was kind of, ‘right, it's not going to happen’, and then they entered an under-23 team and got a good group of girls in for it, which was hard for us older ones looking on being like, ‘oh I'd only love to be wearing the Cavan jersey.’

“And then Philip (Brady), our manager, he kind of rang a few girls around March time and put the feelers out again to see would they be willing to come in and commit. With the basis of the under-23 team and maybe a few of the minor girls, we got a group together and we built on it over the few weeks after that.

“Honestly, it's probably one of the tightest groups I've ever met. I don't know how it worked out, but maybe it was because everyone was fully committed in there and really wanted Cavan camogie to push on.

“I think it just goes to show that if you have a group of girls who are talented enough and are willing to put in the work.”

Having not had the benefit of a League campaign together, championship camogie was something of a journey into the unknown for the newly constituted Cavan team but their passage to Sunday’s All-Ireland Final has been remarkably smooth with seven wins in a row.

“We got together and we had trained for a few weeks and we had one challenge game against Meath and then we were straight into the Ulster Intermediate Final against Tyrone,” says O’Keeffe.

“At that stage, we were still adding girls to the panel as well so it was very much of the unknown.

“But, looking back, it kind of probably helped us out because it took all the pressure off us. It was very much go out see what we can do and then when saw that there was something there and I think that's when the confidence started to build.

“There was a kind of an attitude change there to be like, right, we can go with this for the championship then.

“There was a kind of a feeling that it wasn't just being thrown together, that it was going to be a proper set-up, and I think girls decided to then really buy into it.”

O’Keeffe has already won two All-Ireland titles in her Gaelic games career. The 2013 Intermediate Football Championship with Cavan and the AIB All-Ireland Junior B Club Championship with Lacken when she scored a hat-trick of goals in the final.

A third All-Ireland medal on Sunday would be another sweet experience, but, win or lose, what she really hopes is that Cavan camogie can build on this latest comeback by being a perennial presence in national competitions.

“Yeah, that is the challenge,” she says.

“You would really, really hope that that cohort of girls that maybe now are in their late twenties, you would hope that they are going to step up now and really drive this on.

“Even the buy-in from other club girls as well, hopefully seeing Cavan out in Croke Park they'll have that ambition now to be like, well, you know what, we can actually be part of a Cavan set-up and we can get to All-Ireland stages and we can wear the blue jersey with pride.

“The push has to come from clubs and you'd hope there would be a change in attitude of girls as well that they want to play for Cavan camogie more so than just being asked to play for it.”