Faye ready for the grind again after ‘incredible’ year

By Kevin Egan

From glamour to grind and back to glamour again. That’s been the story of Faye Mulrooney’s journey as an Offaly camogie player, and as she prepares for 2026 and the county’s return to the senior championship, she anticipates a little bit of grinding before they’ll feel comfortable back in the top tier.

At minor level, the Clareen native and Birr club player took part in two All-Ireland finals, three if you count the replay defeat to Antrim in 2021. That meant that she graduated up to the senior panel just at the time when things were toughest.

“It had been such a high at minor, particularly the win over Laois (in 2022), but I came into the senior panel that year and you could feel that the group were struggling. Offaly had been battling relegation for some time and every year it was a struggle to keep players,” is how she remembers her introduction to adult camogie with the county.

“It was great to be in there alongside players like Siobhán Flannery and Gráinne Dolan who were a brilliant influence on the younger players, but that year we should have been relegated, then Galway won the intermediate so we didn’t go down. It felt like two very hard years in a row before we were finally down in intermediate, which was a standard where we felt we could compete.”

If 2024 served as the reset, with Offaly reaching an All-Ireland semi-final only to lose out to Cork at Semple Stadium, then the news that second teams would not be allowed to take part in the intermediate championship in 2025 was a huge boost; not just to Offaly but also to Kerry, Meath, Antrim, Down and all the other counties that suddenly wouldn’t have the backups of the established powers to worry about.

“You could tell that when we got back up and running last November, there was a sense that we really could push on and do this,” she recalls.

“League is league and we were in Division Two, changing the team every week to make sure players all got their chance to put their hand up, but we felt that we had the best players available and after we won the league final, we could see things getting better and better.”

The group stages of the championship showed promise, but it was in Newbridge against Antrim that the toughest hurdle was crossed. Division 1B league champions and just down from senior themselves, the Saffrons edged out Offaly in a tight round robin game up north and started that semi-final in St Conleth’s Park as competition favourites, only for Offaly to hold on and record a heart-stopping, thrilling 1-16 to 2-12 win.

The final in Croke Park was more of a defensive arm-wrestle than an attacking showcase, but Grace Teehan’s Player of the Match performance saw Offaly overcome Kerry and secure their place back among the big guns for next year’s championship.

It’s a more competitive environment than when Offaly left it. There were 12 teams in senior when Offaly got relegated two years ago, now it’s ten. Waterford have pushed on and are genuine contenders to win a first ever senior All-Ireland in 2026; Galway have given hope to the chasing pack and also won the U-23 title; and Cork should be as strong as ever, stung by their shock defeat in this year’s final.

“Our target has to be competing strongly against Clare, Limerick, maybe putting it up to Wexford,” is how Mulrooney lays out the team’s prospects for 2026.

“It would be hugely disappointing to go up and then go straight back down, it has been such a hard grind to get here.”

As a student and Ashbourne Cup player with UL, Mulrooney is more familiar than most with the two Shannonside counties.

“I know them well enough, I’m very friendly with Laura Southern (Limerick) and we’ve played those counties in challenge games, and the girls down here would be encouraging in how they describe where we (Offaly) are.

“We know that we’re not going to be competing with Galway and Cork straight away, we’ll need a good few years of keeping girls involved and making sure as a group we build up the experience and strength, and bring a few new players in every year as well, to get to a point where we can think about that.”

External factors will always play into that and make intercounty camogie impossible for some players, particularly as they go further in their careers or have to consider emigration. But within the panel, Mulrooney feels that they can also help to keep the pull factor strong with Offaly camogie.

“The biggest thing is winning, winning creates a better vibe. The championship will be really tough but we have the league and if we can be competitive there and then put our best foot forward in the summer, that’ll help.

“Also, there’s a very good bond in the group and we need to maintain and strengthen that. It would be so disheartening to go back to the way things were because if there’s high player turnover, it doesn’t matter who the manager is, we’re going to struggle.”

On the club front, it was also a successful season for Mulrooney, with Birr winning back the senior title that they relinquished to St Cillian’s in 2024. Here too, getting the best players on the field was crucial – or to be more specific, the return of Sarah Harding, who scored all three goals in their 3-18 to 1-10 win over Shinrone.

“Sarah was back from Dubai and like the county players, she wasn’t there for the league, but Paul (Maloney) and Tommy (Teehan) came in this year and they brought a fresh perspective and got the group working well. There was a lot of hurt from the 2024 final, but they got everyone to buy into a common aim and that meant that from the very small numbers that we would have had the first year I was in the panel as an U-16, now we had 30 girls training every night,” recalls Faye.

“Sarah’s a brilliant player but it was also great to have her experience, her leadership, and she makes sure standards are high and keeps the intensity up at training.”

Birr’s Leinster championship campaign was short as they were drawn out to face Dicksboro, 2023 All-Ireland club champions and the favourites to win back that title now that Sarsfields didn’t make it out of Galway.

That Leinster semi-final in St Brendan’s Park was a tough afternoon for the home club, but Mulrooney’s take on it is something that will apply to Offaly in 2026 as well.

“Our mindset going into that game was that we were clicking, we were feeding well off each other and that we would have a right crack at that game,” she says.

“We had nothing to lose, we had just played De la Salle in a challenge game and while we didn’t win, we thought we played well enough but on the day, whether it was the occasion or whatever, it didn’t happen, and if you don’t perform at that level, you’ll pay the price.

“But it’s all part of a learning curve for us. We know we can be better, and every day you go out, you need to take something from it and be stronger for the next match.

“This year was incredible, with Birr and with Offaly, it still feels like a bit of a blur since we only had six days between the All-Ireland final and the club championship! But even now, you have people coming up to you and congratulating you, it was a special thing to do, and it’s on all of us now to make sure that we push on and make sure we don’t go back to just constantly battling relegation, that we stick together and believe we can compete at senior and make sure that the best players always want to be part of it,” she adds.