Players' fashion choice of shorts over skorts thrusts Irish sport of camogie into the spotlight

Boston Globe

29-05-2025

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Seems obvious as we sit here in 2025, but no one needs to be telling these women that how they look is more important than their comfort, or their competitive preference. Not there, not here, not anywhere.
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The Irish women decided to do something about it. At a May 3 match between the senior teams from Dublin and Kilkenny, players arrived in shorts, staging a coordinated protest. The ensuing refusal by the officials to let the game proceed until players changed into skorts set off a social media firestorm, with further fuel provided by the optics — it was three men forcing the change.
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Afterward, with the game played (in skorts), Dublin's captain, Aisling Maher, wrote on Instagram: 'Career low for me today when 60-plus players ready to play a championship game in shorts are told their match will be abandoned if every player doesn't change into skorts. I love this game, but I am sick of being forced to wear a skort that is uncomfortable and unfit for purpose. How are female players still having to push for permission to wear shorts while they compete at the highest level of their sport?'
Outrage followed.
A few weeks later, with word that players from upstart Waterford and defending champion Cork were similarly prepared to wear shorts for their much-anticipated Munster final (Ireland has four provinces, the other three being Ulster, Connacht, and Leinster, with each one's champion playing for the All-Ireland title), the Camogie Association postponed the match shortly before it was meant to start. Outrage followed again, with demands from fans, players, and, predictably, politicians for change.
It inspired me to call my cousin Aoife Doyle, who lives in Limerick, located in Munster, and whose daughter, 15-year-old Roisin, is a stellar athlete who only last year gave up camogie because its schedule clashed with her budding athletics career (she's a junior national champion in the 100-meter dash). I needed some local reaction.
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'The headlines were everywhere,' Aoife told me. 'Both captains of Waterford and Cork came out and said they were willing to hand over the Cup, they were all together on this, standing strong and willing to walk away from the opportunity of the match. And then they canceled the match. There was an uproar because those girls, this is an amateur sport for them, they don't get paid, but they've done a huge amount of training, are fit as fiddles, and had themselves mentally prepared for that match.
'At the last minute to pull them out, I thought that was a silly move. They're trying to get people to watch women's sports. At the moment the country is really trying to promote women in sports, there are lots of ads on the telly about it, and they definitely would have watched with the skorts saga.'
Though the match has yet to be rescheduled, when it is, the players can wear shorts.
'I think it's great that everyone has a choice and women in sports have many different choices in what they wear,' Roisin told me. 'We're evolving, the world is changing, the sport has to change, too. I thought it was inspiring. '
Like field hockey players before them, who fought for alternatives to skirts, to German Olympic gymnasts, who
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Camogie was founded in 1904. It is thrilling to watch, earning its moniker as the fastest game on grass. But its meaning goes far deeper than results. Like hurling and fellow national sport Gaelic football, camogie is an intrinsic and important part of Ireland's culture, founded when the mere existence of anything Irish was threatened by British rule.
Rebellion then, rebellion now. Good for them.
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at