Basketball ladies go from ‘almost invisible’ to national ambition

Give Siobhán Doran’s under-13 players barely 24 hours’ notice of an extra training session and they will be there.

For the club’s women’s section chairperson, that hunger shows how far the game has come. What was once almost invisible now has players at every age, a team competing at national development level and ambitions to climb higher.

“The amount of success that we’ve had just shows the passion that is in the community for basketball,” she said.

Siobhán grew up in the club, spent time away and returned to pass on what she had learned. She now manages its Basketball Ireland Development League team, coaches at under-13 and under-14 level and continues to play.

For 30 years, Maigh Cuilinn had a men’s National League team without an equivalent route for women. Helping establish the development league side is Siobhán’s proudest achievement.

“We’ve been able to bring everything together and actually have a team that is playing at the next level,” she said.

Her ambition is for that pathway eventually to reach Division One of the National League.

Its foundations were laid in the 1980s, when Barbara Walshe recognised that girls’ sport was “either non-existent, almost invisible and really gendered” and decided to change it.

Barbara sought out people “who knew” how to make that happen, bringing together the experience and volunteer support needed to create opportunities for local girls.

A landmark moment arrived in 1997, when Maigh Cuilinn’s under-16 girls became the club’s first female All-Ireland champions, overcoming Castleisland after two periods of overtime in a dramatic Community Games final at Mosney.

Loretta Ní Ghabháin was among the generation that benefited, playing behind Scoil Mhuire before basketball took her to Coláiste Chroí Mhuire, college in the UK and later Division Three. She returned to help train the first Rógairí Óga under-eights and now watches her daughters play at under-12 level.

“We want to keep that torch lit,” she said. Loretta also proposed the official name, Cumann Cispheile Mhaigh Cuilinn, reflecting its Gaeltacht identity and connection to place.

The growth has created space for women who want to play without competing at an elite level. For committee member Sarah McNamara, the Thursday-night social team has been “a great point of the week” for 15 years.

Another barrier fell in 2022, when four women’s teams took part in the traditional St Stephen’s Day Blitz for the first time. A competition that had united generations of men now belonged to the women too.

The inaugural winners included former club star Áine McDonagh, now an All-Australian with Hawthorn in the AFLW. She’s making her mark down under with 56 goals and counting, the most AFLW goals by an Irish player. The 28-year-old came through Cumann Cispheile Mhaigh Cuilinn and helped its under-14 girls win an All-Ireland Club Championship, a victory she later described as her favourite sporting achievement outside Australian Rules.

Club registrar Noelle Stelle sees the same progress when children take to the court at half-time during senior games. Those starting out can watch the club’s top players and see a future as national or social players, coaches, referees or officials.

“It’s lovely just to see the full circle,” she said. “These are just starting out, but they’re watching the top-level players we have, and everyone in between is there supporting them all.”

For Siobhán, the value of that belonging reaches far beyond results or league positions.

“What sport gives, and what a club like Maigh Cuilinn gives, is a home for someone,” she said. “If you go abroad, you always have a home because you can always go and play basketball within a club. That will give you community and that will ground you.”

A generation of women once had to create a place for girls in Maigh Cuillinn basketball. Those coming behind them can now see somewhere to belong at every age and level, with a route stretching all the way to the National League.