St Kevin’s Camogie Club now a reality

5 May 2021

A NEW camogie club has been formed in East Down.

St Kevin’s Camogie Club is the result of the coming together of Teconnaught GAC and Drumaness GAC, which both have strong camogie traditions.

The two clubs share a sporting history — many years ago they united to form a football team also titled St Kevin’s.

The exciting new venture materialised after a conversation between chairperson Maria Ryan, who hails all the way from Silvermines in Co Tipperary, but now lives in Teconnaught, and vice-chair Cathy Mason, a Drumaness native, about keeping the tradition of camogie alive.

“After endless conversations with Teconnaught chairman Barry Carville over the years, he brought it to the Teconnaught committee’s attention,” said Maria.

“Once he did this, word got out about the interest of camogie around the community. This is what led to a conversation with Cathy, who had a shared love and passion for the sport,” she continued.

“We both agreed it would be amazing if we could bring young girls together to play camogie. The success of St. Kevin’s would not have been possible without the drive from both parishes”.

The newly formed committee is made up of a number of associated members from both clubs, who all share the same common goal of teaching camogie to as many girls as possible whilst ensuring a longevity to develop and establish the club.

Cathy said it was “an absolute honour” to play a part in the creation of St Kevin’s.

“As a Drumaness Gael I know that a very special lady, Annie Gelston, a Drumaness camogie legend, will be looking down with pride,” said Mason.

“I would like to say a special word of thanks to the Drumaness and Teconnaught clubs for their unwavering support over the past few weeks, not only in the initial set-up but also with use of their pitches and facilities”.

The club held their first training session together at the Teconnaught club grounds on Saturday and it was evident that there is a potential successful future ahead based on the turnout of participants.

“There’s not many times in my life I’ve been lost for words, but describing my emotions and feelings of Saturday is definitely one of them,” said Maria.

“We had over 90 girls show up for our first training session, over 40 in our senior ladies and U-17 session and over 40 in our sessions for the younger girls,” she added.

Cathy also reflected on the historic first training session, describing it as a “special moment” as she watched the “many smiles on the faces of the young children having fun and hopefully falling in love with the wonderful sport of camogie”.

Since many of the girls in all of the age groups had never attended a camogie training session before, the highly experienced coaches, who have backgrounds in both hurling and camogie, began teaching the basics to get them familiar with holding a hurley and making contact with the sliotar.

Several different training drills were also incorporated to get the new recruits comfortable on the pitch.

“It is very important to me and the coaches that we made this past Saturday and all future sessions a positive experience for the girls,” said Maria.

“So many of them took to it so naturally and we can’t wait to see how they progress over the season”.

St Kevin’s now eagerly look ahead to their first match against Ballela on May 19.

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