Locals go head-to-head in All-Ireland camogie final

Locals go head-to-head in All-Ireland camogie final

6 August 2025

ON Sunday evening – barring a draw – either the Mallon family from Portaferry or the McCartan family from Castlewellan will celebrate a daughter picking up an All-Ireland senior camogie medal.

Niamh Mallon and Sorcha McCartan scored for Down when they won the 2020 All-Ireland Intermediate final with victory over Antrim.

Mallon was player of the match in the final and later on collected the Ulster camogie player of the year award, while both players were included in the Irish News and the Soaring Stars camogie teams of the year.

In July the following year the pair topped the scoring charts as Down won the Division 2 league. McCartan scored 1-4 in the first half and was player of the match.

Later that summer Down played for the first time in over two decades in the All-Ireland senior championship, running Waterford and Dublin close, but they were comfortably beaten by Cork at Páirc Esler. However victory over Westmeath meant that they retained senior status for the following season.

Castlewellan’s Sorcha McCartan, the daughter of Down All-Ireland winning footballer Gregory, had been commuting from Cork that season. She eventually decided to transfer to St Finbarr’s in the city and was immediately sought out by the Cork county management.

Since then she has appeared in three successive All-Ireland finals, losing the first in 2022, but following up with vital scores to help her adopted county to victory over Waterford in 2023 and then Galway in last year’s final.

Niamh Mallon, daughter of former Down and Ulster hurler Marty, captained Down in 2022 and 2023 and was one of the top scorers in the championship over those two campaigns, despite the team struggling to remain at the top table. She earned an All-star nomination the first season and lifted the Ulster senior title for the team the following year.

She had travelled to play for Down and Portaferry from her work in Galway for more than two seasons. But at the start of 2024 sought a transfer to a Galway club – Sarsfield’s.

She too was quickly approached by the county management and came off the bench in the last quarter of the league final to make an impression with three points.

Although Galway lost both league and championship deciders last year, Mallon became just the second player from Down to win an All-star – exactly 20 years after Máirín McAleenan, from Liatroim Fontenoys, was named in the first ever selection.

Since then Mallon and Galway have lost this year’s league final to Cork, but bounced back to reach Sunday’s All-Ireland decider. The Portaferry native scored 1-2 in the semi-final win over Tipperary and is her team’s top-scorer from play for the championship.

In the second semi-final McCartan hit the target twice as Cork kept their three-in-a-row hopes alive.

On Sunday evening (10th August) an All-Ireland medal will be on its way to a Down home. Will it be in Portaferry or Castlewellan.