O’Connor Cup Semi-Finalists Shauna Howley, left, UL, and Lucy McCartan, UCD, in attendance at the 2020 Gourmet Food Parlour O’Connor Cup Captain's Day at Croke Park in Dublin.
By John Harrington
It’s May 10, 2009 in Gaelic Park, the home of the GAA in New York, and Sportsfile photographer Pat Murphy has just captured a moment in time.
A young Mayo supporter is leaning out over the fence with a camera in her hands all the better to get a good photograph of her own.
She’s trying to get a nice shot of her hero, Mayo centre-back Trevor Howley, who also happens to be her brother.
Almost 11 years later, and that young Mayo supporter, Shauna Howley, is now a county footballer herself with Mayo.
A then eleven-year-old Shauna Howley pictured taking photographs of her brother Trevor while he played for Mayo against New York in the first round of the 2009 Connacht Senior Football Championship.
She’s also captain of the University of Limerick O’Connor Cup team, and at the launch of the 2020 Gourmet Food Parlour O’Connor Cup weekend in Croke Park today she smiled when her memory of that moment in Gaelic Park all those years ago was jogged.
“My brother was centre-back that day,” said Howley. “He's someone I would have looked up to all my life. He flew us out and paid for me and my family and we flew out to New York.
“I remember going out with the camera and my eyes were on him the whole time. It was a great trip, we went to Boston to visit my uncle for a few days.
“Back then we would have followed my brother all over the country. Male sportsmen get more recognition and he'd be spotted everywhere so I always wanted to be beside him!”
Howley has grown up to be a fine footballer herself, and she gives a lot of credit to her big brother for setting an example she could aspire to.
“He did an apprenticeship from a young age so was always at hope so I would have seen the dedication he put into it,” she says.
“He was up at half-five in the morning and wouldn't be home until 10 o'clock. That was 10 or 12 years ago and even back then the dedication required was huge.
“He'd be drinking skimmed milk even as part of his diet, and the work-rate he put in was just huge. If he was outside playing football I'd want to be outside with him, and I learned an awful lot from him.”
Former Mayo footballer, Trevor Howley.
When Howley started to make the grade herself on underage county teams and then the senior team itself with Mayo, her brother was always a good person to get advice from and bounce ideas off.
“Yeah, definitely, there was a few times he'd definitely be the first person on my list if I was unsure about something,” she says.
“We'd watch back clips and I'd ask him what he would have done. He was very helpful in that way. We probably have a very similar mind-set so I'd bounce an awful lot off him.
“He's definitely someone who has shaped the person and player that I am today. I've a lot to be grateful to him for.”
As Howley said at the top of this piece, male sportsmen tend to get more recognition.
That’s still the case as far as Gaelic Games is concerned, but not to the extent it once was.
The explosion in popularity of Ladies Gaelic Football and camogie and the positive marketing of women’s sport in gneral by initiatives such as the 20x20 campaign has had a balancing effect.
Howley has felt the impact of this particularly keenly in UL where equality is now a sporting policy.
“In UL sports we've an awful lot to be grateful for,” she says. “They've really pushed the 20x20 campaign.
“Right now down in the Arena in UL there's a massive poster and there's pictures of present and past players from various sports.
“The idea is just that you're walking around campus and you see this massive poster of great women sportspeople that have come and gone on the campus.
“We're lucky in UL because it's very equal. When I got back to my club and county even you wouldn't know where you're training at the start of the week because pitches might not be available.
“But in UL it's not like that. What the lads have, you have. We've our S&C, we get the pool, you get food after training, there's never any problem. There's just no imbalance and the lads would see us as equal.
“I think when it comes to county and club standards there's still a massive gap there. We might not get a pitch because the lads are on it and that sort of thing. There is still a gap, but I have seen a huge progression and the 20x20 campaign is pushing that all the more.”
Shauna Howley of University of Limerick receiving her 2018 Gourmet Food Parlour O’Connor Cup All Star Award from Marie Hickey, President of the LGFA, and Donal Barry, Chairperson Ladies HEC, at the Croke Park Hotel.
To give the quest for sporting equality even more of a boost, Howley believes that women should look no further than themselves, first and foremost.
“Women need to help each other out and start supporting each other,” she says. “We even need to ask more questions because if you don't ask, you don't get.
“At club level we're starting to ask simple questions and demand things. Sometimes I think women are afraid to speak out and that shouldn't be the message.
“There's not equality when it comes to the basics and until we hit that we won't progress as much as we need to. It's going in the right direction, hopefully in another year or two we'll all be on a level playing field.”
For proof that equality will lead to rising standards, Howley cites the example of UL.
They’ve won four of the last six O’Connor Cups and she believes their record of success is thanks in no small part to the fact that they’re given every support in their quest to be the best they can be.
“Looking back now, that's definitely a huge progression,” she says. “Two to three weeks ago the camogie girls won a fifth Ashbourne Cup in a row.
“In the last six years we've competed in every (O'Connor Cup) Final. That just doesn't happen by chance. There's a lot of people in UL who have done so much good work.
“DJ Collins is UL to the core and has developed the thing hugely. With UL sport and Ronan (Keane) in the GAA office, we don't have to ask for anything. Everything is just done and there for us and we don't have to worry about it.
“I do know there's huge work going on in the background and definitely having everything equal just regarding the basics has played a huge role in our success. Hopefully it just continues.”
UL captain Shauna Howley lifting the O’Rourke Cup following the Gourmet Food Parlour HEC Ladies Division 1 League Final match between Dublin City University and University of Limerick at Stradbally GAA, Co Laois, in December 2019.
UL have already won the Division 1 League title and play UCD in the O’Connor Cup semi-final next Friday, March 13.
The mission is to successfully defend the silverware they won last year, but regardless of whether they do or not, Howley will always treasure the experience of competing in the O’Connor Cup.
“I can't describe what the O'Connor Cup means to me,” she says. “I'm playing with girls from Kerry, Tipp, Laois, Cork. I'll never get that chance again. I've made friends for life.
“We're all on the same page, we're all in College, and UL is very good like that. They make sure that you're primarily there for the education, and football is just there on the side.
“Probably too many of us focus too much on the football at times and the education can get left, but we all help each other out where we can. We'd be on the bus and someone might be doing maths and someone would be helping them with it.
“We all help one another both on and off the field, we're really good friends. I have no words for the O'Connor Cup, it's just a very special thing.
“I probably wouldn't be in fourth year now if it wasn't for it! It's dragged me through college! I've made friends for life.”
