Offaly Senior Camogie Team

The Offaly County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) ( ga, Cumann Luthchleas Gael Coiste Uíbh Fhailí) or Offaly GAA is one of the 32 county boards of the GAA in Ireland, and is responsible for Gaelic games in County Offaly. Separate county boards are also responsible for the Offaly county teams.

The county hurling team won All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship (SHC) titles during the 1980s and 1990s but is no longer capable of competing at this level. The county football team won All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (SFC) titles during the 1970s and 1980s.

Hurling

Clubs

Clubs contest the Offaly Senior Hurling Championship. That competition's most successful club is Coolderry, with 31 titles.

County team

After a scheme developed by the Gaelic Athletic Association in the 1970s to encourage the playing of hurling in non-traditional counties, Offaly was one of the first teams to benefit. As a result, the county won six Leinster Senior Hurling Championship titles in the 1980s, as well as its first All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship in 1981.

The county team has since gone on to win three other All-Irelands. Perhaps Offaly's most famous win came in the All-Ireland Final of 1994 in what has come to be remembered as the "five minute final." Limerick looked set to win their first All-Ireland title since 1973 until Offaly staged one of the greatest comebacks of all time, scoring two goals and five points in the last five minutes. They defeated Limerick by 3–16 to 2–13.

The Vocational Schools team has made it to 12 All-Ireland Vocational Schools Championship finals but have never won one.

Football

Clubs

Clubs contest the Offaly Senior Football Championship. That competition's most successful club is Rhode, with 30 titles.

County team

Perhaps the most famous moment in football history came in the 1982 All-Ireland Final when Offaly played Kerry. The match was a repeat of the previous year's final; however, not only that but a win for Kerry would give them an unprecedented fifth consecutive All-Ireland SFC title. Kerry were winning by two points with two minutes to go when Séamus Darby came on as a substitute and scored a critical goal. Kerry fumbled the counterattack which allowed Offaly to win by one single point with a score of 1–15 to 0–17.

The Offaly vocational schools' team have made it to six All-Ireland finals but lost all six, including the first final when they were beaten by the Cork City team in 1961.

Camogie

Nine Offaly camogie clubs were organised in the 1930s and Offaly entered the Leinster championships of 1935 and 1936, but the game declined amid the Camogie Association disputes of the 1940s and had to be revived by Clare-born Mary O’Brien in 1973, and a county board re-formed in 1979.
Offaly won their first major national titles in 2002 when they won the second division of the National Camogie League and in 2009 when they defeated Waterford in the All Ireland junior final.
Drumcullen reached the final of the All Ireland club junior championship in 2003. Kinnity won the Division 3 shield at Féile na nGael in 1997, Drumcullen won the Coiste Chontae an Chláir Shield in 1997.

Notable players include soaring star award winners Karen Brady, Elaine Dermody, Audrey Kennedy, Michaela Morkan, Fiona Stephens, and Arlene Watkins.

Miriam O'Callaghan served as president of the Camogie Association.

Under Camogie's National Development Plan 2010–2015, "Our Game, Our Passion", five new camogie clubs were to be established in the county by 2015.

Offaly Camogie launched home and away jerseys in May 2021.

Ladies' football

Offaly has a ladies' football team.

References

Bibliography

* ''Official History Of Offaly GAA'' by P J Cunningham and Ricey Scully (1984)
* ''Ballycumber GAA 1890–1984'' edited by Eddie Cunningham
* ''Tullamore GAA Club History'' by John Clarke (1984)

External links

Offaly GAA site

{{GAA bodies

Gaelic games governing bodies in Leinster
Leinster GAA
Sport in County Offaly