My passion for Camogie

By Niamh Holland

I started playing camogie when I was four years old with Moorefield GAA Club. At first, I didn’t quite enjoy it because I just wanted to stay at home and do whatever I wanted. However, after some encouragement from my parents, I started to become more interested in it and started practicing it at home with my dad and brother. As I was practicing more, I started to notice how good I was becoming at camogie. I was actually really enjoying training and matches now. After all those years of practice, I made it on to the Under-14 Kildare development team. Now, I am currently on the Under-15 Kildare county team.

I love camogie because of the skill it takes to play it. It would take at least a year to master it as a sport. You need to be able to jab lift, roll lift, try to hit the sliotar, then, try to hit the sliotar on the run, solo run and be able to tackle.

Hurling and camogie are the fastest land games in the world so, you would have to be quite fast and fit to play it.

I admire players and post-players like Anna Geary, Aisling Thompson and Rena Buckley. I look up to them because of their skill, motivation and dedication.

I never found camogie an easy sport to play. In fact, I like how it is quite difficult to master. I like the way it is a challenge and how it tests me. However, make no mistake about it, I do have many offdays and I get frustrated when things don’t go right for me.

One thing that I have learned though, is that practice makes perfect, (even if it is years of practice). Camogie is a challenging and skilful sport to master, but one that I am passionate about and enjoy playing.