The scenes in Croke Park on Sunday would make you proud to be Irish but there’s so much more to do

I think it was 2005.

If memory serves correctly I remember watching the 2005 All-Ireland camogie final in Croke Park between Tipperary and Cork. Mam had mentored my sister's underage team for Whitehall Colmcille and the GAA used to dish out tickets to get young girls around the country there for a great day out. I had only just turned 9 and remember being shocked at how empty the stadium was, there might have been 15,000 there but at the time it seemed like my primary school brought more supporters for their Cumann na mBunscol final. Of course, that wasn’t the case, I had gone to see Dublin play in GAA HQ a few times that summer, a sell out against Meath and against Tyrone in the quarterfinals meant the place was packed to the rafters. That is how 9-year-old me viewed Croke Park. Even at that age though, I had equal respect for women in sport as men, mam used to bring me to training every Tuesday and Thursday with the camogie team, sun, wind or rain. I’d always be encouraged to get involved in a couple of drills and the match at the end, I’d see the same dedication to the sport as my own team that were a couple of years younger and the standard was quite high. I was never a great hurler and was often schooled by mam’s team, being put on my arse at camogie training taught me never to take female sport for granted. It was drilled into me at an early age that boys and girls were equal and I’d never question it, and then I saw that empty stadium and it didn’t add up. Attending an all-boys secondary school meant that the interests in women’s sport dropped over time, I’d watch the All-Ireland in camogie and football when they came around but that was about it, as you can imagine not many people watched women’s sport in an all-boys secondary school. And then 2016 came round. Watching Champions League on the TV one day and it cut to an ad break, normally you’re half watching but this time was different, I saw a Gaelic football and the TV had my full focus. The ad that was shown was Lidl’s newest showcasing women’s GAA and their support of the LGFA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1WhbSiW0wc It seemed to get people talking, a fair few of my Facebook and WhatsApp groups mentioned it, it wasn’t going unnoticed. The company pumped in serious money into the LGFA to improve the treatment of players and awareness of the sport, €1.5m in their first year of their three-year deal. Speaking to Sarah Rowe two weeks out from the All-Ireland Final she highlighted the efforts Lidl have made over the past year:

"Lidl have been absolutely unbelievable, they came down to us on Friday to Mayo training and they brought every single player a massive bag of shopping for our preparation but they’re always doing things for players," Rowe says. "They’ve given us vouchers for the next two weeks for our shopping. We need people like that getting behind it, businesses getting behind it but getting behind every team and every county not just one of two."

 The ad certainly caused a stir and awareness was raised, growing stronger each year. People are starting to take notice of women’s sports and 2017 is the strongest example of that. There was a record crowd in Croke Park on Sunday, 46,286 at the game between Dublin and Mayo, it was bigger than the crowd at the FA Cup final, it was bigger than the crowd at the Cricket World Cup Final. It was the biggest attendance of any women’s finalt in 2017. Remarkable. But what is more impressive is that it is taken seriously, one of Lidl’s ambassadors in Sinead Goldrick of Dublin admitted herself that maybe women weren’t being taken seriously enough. Yet, walking through Drumcondra on Sunday evening it was the same as a week prior, Mayo fans gutted once again, genuinely. The profiles may have differed, there were a lot more mothers with their daughters, they go to the watch the men too but this time there are role models to look up, but the eery silence of an All-Ireland defeat was the exact same. And then you rewind to a couple of months ago and the Women’s World Cup, the same case applied. My father isn’t huge into sport but always gets behind his country, he had the same conversation with me ahead of Ireland’s clash against France as two years prior when the men faced France in the 2015 World Cup there was no cheerleading and he was quick to criticise them in the same manner as their male counterparts when they were completely outplayed. It wasn’t just him, Eddie O’Sullivan did the same thing, 2017 showcased in Ireland that women were being taken seriously and both Croke Park on Sunday and the World Cup proved that. But there’s so much more to do, Ireland is still miles away from making sport a level playing field between men and women. You hear of the Irish women’s football team having to share tracksuits and change in toilets, we are a far way from being where we want to be as a nation. Maybe the playing field will never be even, commercial interests often dictate that but, at least for one year, the gap grew shorter rather than a continuing divide and it’d be great to keep that momentum going.