'You dream of those Croke Park days from when you’re only a child'

By Daire Walsh

Despite some personal disappointment with how the game panned out for the Kingdom, former Kerry ladies footballer Ayesha Roche still felt privileged to be amongst the 82,300 spectators who passed through the Croke Park turnstiles last Sunday for a monumental occasion.

Following a well-documented 75-year wait, Mayo secured a fourth All-Ireland senior men’s football championship title with a magnificent 1-20 to 1-17 victory over defending champions Kerry in GAA HQ. This led to scenes of unconfined joy throughout the Jones’ Road venue with the Connacht county finally enjoying their day in the sun after many decades of heartbreak.

While her native county came out on the wrong side of the result, Roche was amongst a sizable contingent of Kerry supporters who remained in the stadium as the victorious Mayo players climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand to get their hands on the Sam Maguire Cup.

“Do you know what, doesn’t it show the absolute strength of sport at the same time. It was absolutely outrageous. Obviously I’m from Kerry, so I’d be a bit disappointed, but at the same time it was outrageous to just be at it. You’re there with making history being at the game,” Roche proclaimed.

“That’s all my husband kept saying as well. He was like ‘I know you’re disappointed, but this is outrageous!’ Even the amount of Kerry fans that just stayed for nearly the whole presentation, the speech and everything. Croke Park was still full for ages afterwards. You never see that.”

Although the Kerry men came up short in their quest for another All-Ireland title, their female counterparts have their own TG4 All-Ireland senior football championship final to look forward to against Galway at Croke Park tomorrow.

Even though she hasn’t featured at inter-county level with the Kingdom for quite some time – she was part of a Kerry panel that earned top honours in the Munster senior football championship in 2015 – Roche is familiar with a lot of the players who are part of the current set-up.

For starters, the quintet of Deirdre Kearney, Mary O’Connell, Aoife Barrett, Megan O’Connor and Jadyn Lucey all line out for her former club of Na Gaeil. Eilis and Brid O’Connor (sisters of Kerry men’s footballer Diarmuid) are also members of the Tralee-based outfit and were panellists when the Kingdom bridged a 31-year gap to claim the Brendan Martin Cup with a final win over Galway in 2024.

The likes of Emma Costello, Aishling O’Connell, Anna Galvin and Eilís Lynch also remain from her own time on the Kerry squad and Roche believes it would be a huge boost for the county if they were able to add to their triumph of two years ago.

“It would be absolutely massive. Because everyone thinks ‘oh Kerry men’. They often associate and they assume that the women’s team are as strong or doing as well as the men’s team. That Kerry ladies team, when they finally won after losing the two finals along the way, it was massive.

“I hadn’t ever seen a Kerry ladies team win an All-Ireland ladies until that one in 2024. Now you’re literally seeing girls that you would have played with for years on the biggest day. You just hope that people do get behind them and back them. It definitely helps in terms of what is on offer to people whenever you’re doing well. It’s no different to the men’s games.”

While she never got to line out for Kerry in an All-Ireland final at Croke Park, Roche did get to do so in the colours of another county. Playing her club football locally with Kilbeggan Shamrocks by then – though she subsequently transferred back to Na Gaeil for a brief period – the University of Limerick graduate was part of a Westmeath side that lost out to Meath in a TG4 All-Ireland intermediate football championship showpiece on December 20, 2020.

Although the game took place behind closed doors owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, Roche – who didn’t play for Westmeath this year as she is currently expecting a child with her husband - was still glad to have featured in an All-Ireland decider at the north Dublin venue.

“You’re from Kerry, you dream of those Croke Park days from when you’re only a child. The fact it was just empty, it was a very different experience. It’s great to have experienced that, but it was probably very different to the Croke Park I would have imagined.

“I’m still very lucky to have played in Croke Park and to have played in an All-Ireland final. Albeit it didn’t go our way, but you would have loved to experience it on All-Ireland final day like next weekend. I think it’d just be a whole different level completely.”

Roche does have an All-Ireland winners’ medal in her possession as she appeared off the bench when a Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh-inspired Na Gaeil defeated Dunedin Connollys from Scotland in a national junior club championship final held at Crettyard, Laois in November 2013.

Yet Roche very nearly missed out on featuring in this decider because of an injury she picked up playing rugby with Tralee in the Women’s All-Ireland League the weekend prior to Na Gaeil’s semi-final win against Shannon Gaels of Roscommon.

Roche had a great passion for the oval ball game and even lined out a number of times for the Munster senior women’s team. However, she eventually placed rugby on the back burner and given she ended up representing two counties at the highest level of ladies football, it proved to be a worthwhile decision.

“Rugby was always kind of actually my main sport. That’s why I would have played that AIL game over not being too worried about the football. I would have taken a step back from football after minor to focus on rugby. Played two years with Munster. Kind of was on the bench, had injury struggles the whole time. Got my three caps and then I was like ‘back to football I go!’,” Roche added.

“You kind of have a vision of playing for Ireland and then it doesn’t really work out. I came up to Westmeath then and quickly found myself in an inter-county set-up, so I was happy then.”