Family rather than history brings O’Reilly back once more

By Daragh Ó Conchúir

Ailish O’Reilly certainly made no bones about it, in the minutes after skipper Carrie Dolan lofted the winner from a placed ball to give Galway their fifth Glen Dimplex All-Ireland senior title 12 months ago, and then received the O’Duffy Cup.

In the build-up, Cork had tried all they could to deflect talk of the three-in-a-row but you cannot control external narratives. Nor can you control how the opposition use them.

“All we heard all week was ‘the three-in-a-row, the three-in-a-row’… It suited us down to the ground. All the talk was about Cork. It felt like we were just coming up to show up and they were just going to be handed the trophy,” O’Reilly stated indignantly.

“We kept it in ourselves the last week but we were so riled up to be honest.”

This year, the shoe is on the other foot. If the three-in-a-row has been a bogey for Cork, so it is for going back-to-back in Galway.

Which is why they, like Cork last year, are desperate to remove it as a reference point, though the pesky media will quite justifiably reinsert it.

Of course they want it. It’s just in these scenarios, you have to strip it back to the basics. And acknowledge that whatever the opposition will gain from the coverage, you cannot add fuel to the fire.

O’Reilly’s barely concealed disdain when two-in-a-row was mentioned immediately after the semi-final defeat of Kilkenny was hilarious but the response illustrated the acknowledgement of the dangers, making a direct comparison with the media storylines around 2025.

Bringing up the possibility of the Oranmore-Maree dual player becoming Galway’s most successful Gaelic games player of all time as a winner of five All-Ireland senior medals, produced a pretty similar response.

“Again, that wouldn’t ever be something I think of until you guys bring it up. All I wanted was Galway to be back in Croke Park and whatever stats exist after that, we’ll deal with it then.”

It would be quite something though. At present, she shares the record with long-time teammate Annmarie Starr and football legend, Mattie McDonagh. Starr might have been involved again this year, but the birth of Millie almost five weeks ago put paid to that. The mother-of-two hasn’t ruled out next year, mind you.

O’Reilly is the only player to have started all four of those camogie final triumphs, however. Galway have five in total.

She has been a key figure in the quartet. An early goal in 2013, a double in 2019, two points and an assist for the game-defining goal in 2021, and then three points from play and a helping hand in the goal and another couple of scores last year.

The primary school teacher is quite open about how her game has evolved over the years, moving further out from the opposition danger zone as her pace has lessened. She puts it down to age but the 32-year-old has battled hamstring tendonitis in recent years.

The hard ground has caused a bit of a flare-up in her Achilles of late too, but her brain is worth its weight in gold.

It is why Cathal Murray gave her until the end of the League to return. She was playing basketball for Claregalway as they beat a path to the BIDL women’s final, having been a top-flight hoops player for a number of years.

Interestingly, the courts don’t aggravate her physical issues and they keep the mind fresh for camogie.

“Her game is different, yeah, which is probably a sign of her brain,” Murray contends. “She’s really good at getting on the break. She's really good at using the ball. Your role evolves in time but she has huge honesty. She’s really a big-day player and we need them players.

“She's a big character around the place and she did mention the word retirement. I felt this time that she would be walking away, and maybe if you pushed it and said, ‘Well, we're going back in January,’ she mightn’t (come back).

“We did lose a lot of leaders in the dressing room and having the likes of Ailish back in was really, really important to us.”

If there is an external motivation for coming back, it is her late grandmother, Mary O’Reilly.

“My granny is at home watching, so this is for her,” was her beaming dedication after last year’s decider.

Now, the eyes well up as she talks about her greatest fan.

“My granny would have been a big part of the reason I played and unfortunately, I lose her just after I actually rejoined the panel, in May.

“For me, it’s her, and hopefully she’s been looking down on us. Once I started U-16, she would have been at every game until Covid. She was a huge part of it. My biggest supporter. I can still see her sitting up in that stand (in Kenny Park). She was a big part of it.

“My uncle was living with her and he’s one of my best friends too. So it’s a little bit different this year, I don’t have her to ring. She'd be the first person I'd call after a game. Hopefully, she'll be looking down on us. If I can make her proud on Sunday, that's enough for me.”

She gets married in October and will consider next year, sometime next year. Right now, the focus is very narrow indeed.

“Look, if there is one good performance in me, I'll take it.”

Given her track record, you would not bet against it.