Loughrea ‘mothers & others’ revelling in new fun activity

ONE of the best sporting initiatives ever launched in this country has been the LGFA’s ‘Mothers & Others’. Providing an outlet for women over 21, the endeavour has seen thousands of females taking up or returning to ladies football in a non-competitive environment.

First introduced as part of the Women in Sport initiative in 2008, Gaelic4Mothers&Others is aimed at those who are not registered as a player with a club and have not played in a long time or have never played ladies football.

Over 200 clubs have embraced it country-wide, with one of those being Loughrea GFC. In 2016, Eilís O’Neill decided to set up the programme in the town and, since then, it has gone from strength-to-strength.

Yet, to explain how it all came about, O’Neill, who is secretary of the local LGFA club, reverts to a year earlier when girls football was started in Loughrea. “In 2015, the girls club began with less than 10 kids under the age of 12. There was a small little core group and, at the first training session, it was a case of bring a friend,” she begins.

“In the space of two years, they were participating in the National Féile down in Kerry and it took on huge momentum. Obviously, at each training session, you could see the mammies standing on the sideline. I had known of the Mothers & Others because my sister-in-law had been on a team in Cork and she always spoke highly of the huge satisfaction of it.”

The concept is that the Mothers & Others train once a week – in Loughrea it is 7:30pm to 8:30pm in Bushfield on a Thursday evening – and that it is non-competitive. O’Neill, who is a mother of three, explains that it allows her to experience the same sense of camaraderie, friendship and fun she sees her children experience on the football pitch.

“It is all about participation. There is absolutely no skill set required. You can literally never have kicked a football before and join a Mothers & Others team. The ethos is really about participation and I think the huge gain for mothers is that it is their hour in the week where we can just go out and have a bit of craic.

“We are also getting fresh air, we are getting fitness and we are ticking all these boxes from a mental health point of view that are so, so important. Mothers don’t generally get that time so it is a fantastic opportunity for us to step aside from our normal routine and try something new or, maybe, revisit a skill we had as a child.”

In the early years, the Mothers & Others were trained by Paul Gallagher and O’Neill’s husband, Phillip, who continues to coach them. In addition, the support the group has received from the local community has been second to none, with McD’s sponsoring tops and the likes of Charlie’s Bar and SuperValu also giving their backing.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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