10-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Daily Mirror
'The skorts controversy is being blown up into the feminist issue of our time'
It's the feminist issue of our time: camogie players' fight for their right to wear shorts.
The skorts controversy took off last weekend after the Dublin and Kilkenny teams protested the mandatory kit of skirt/shorts hybrid, by turning up on the pitch in shorts instead. The match was abandoned and the regulatory skort took its place in the history of Irish women's lib, alongside the ranks of the civil service marriage bar.
Forget the burn the bra movement, these crusading ladies want to ban the 'skort'.
Kerry's Niamh Leen told how she finds them 'embarrassing', saying: 'They're constantly rising up the minute you start running. There's photos after online and the cheeks of your arse are basically on display. I know there's an element of tradition, but.. At this stage they just need to get rid of them. I wouldn't go out at night wearing something as short as the skort.'
I would have thought that's the whole point. The shorts part is added to protect your modesty, so you're free to run around and can wear it as short as you like. Lots of us see that as freedom. Look at the Met Gala red carpet this week, they're not even wearing pants at all anymore.
Dublin captain Niamh Gannon said having to wear a shorts/skirt hybrid was having an effect on players' mental health, and young girls were dropping out due to the injustice of being forced into a pair of shorts with a skirt flap over it. If that's the case, the sport has bigger problems to deal with.
Cork's Ashling Thompson made the straightforward point: "We're not asking to get rid of skorts completely; it's to have a choice in what we wear. " Can't argue with that.
I'm a zealous defender of the right for women to wear whatever they like, whether it be a bikini or a burka. But it should be acknowledged that this issue is less about sexism and more about sports policy.
I believe it's being conflated into a feminist issue, when it's actually about a uniform that blends function with tradition.
So it's now a culture war battle, with the expected skort resolution being elevated to Ireland's Seneca Falls moment. The Camogie Association were threatened with an Oireachtas committee grilling.
The view of it as a form of female oppression is evident in Gannon fuming about how 'in no other facet of my life does someone dictate that I have to wear something resembling a skirt because I am a girl.'
Is it just me who finds it depressing that all the biggest feminist battles lately tend to be about girly things? Ideally with an added dash of titillation. The previous headline-grabbing female sport controversy was a hissy-fit over a kiss after a team victory; this one is a row over a dress code.
But I'm also a fashion fan, so it got me wondering: Is the stuffy old Camogie Association more stylish than its protesting players?
Because the offending clothing item may be cumbersome on the pitch but it's hardly the red cloaks of Gilead handmaids.
In fact, it's one of the biggest moments in fashion this year, kicked off by the 2024 tenniscore hit movie Challengers, starring Zendaya and our own Alison Oliver, resplendent in skorts.
They look great. Fashionista magazine called it' this summer's most functional trend' and said its benefits are it has 'the look of a skirt with the comfort of shorts and no chance of a wardrobe malfunction.
Vox heralded 'the glorious return of the skort' this year and Vogue's headline ran: 'The skort obsession is going nowhere in 2025.' If I was a young camogie player, I'd be campaigning to be allowed to wear these, not seeking a ban on them.
