KIERAN McCARTHY chats to manager Ella Ryan and history-makers Leah Carey, Allie Tobin and Ellen Connolly to reflect on Skibbereen Community School’s greatest day
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ELLA Ryan doesn’t mind that Maebh Collins went against her advice – it led to the most important score in the history of Skibbereen Community School.
‘I always tell the players not to shoot from outside the 20, but to be fair I would trust Maebh Collins outside the 20!’ laughs Ryan, the Lisgoold native who, her students insist, is now an honorary West Cork woman for her role in the Skibb school’s greatest sporting day.
‘You couldn’t ask for a better person to have their hands on the ball for the last kick of the game,’ Skibbereen Community School manager Ryan adds, reflecting on the magical moment the Ilen Rovers teen scored the winning point in the Lidl All-Ireland Senior A Post-Primary Schools football final at Nowlan Park in Kilkenny.
It looked like the momentum was with Loreto College Cavan. The Ulster champions had trailed by seven points at the break but battled back to draw level, and they turned the screw in those final minutes.
Loreto looked the most likely winner, but Maebh Collins had other ideas.
Launching one last attack, the Skibbereen school was patient, and worked the ball to Niamh O’Sullivan, who spotted Collins to her right, free where the edge of the D met the 20-metre line.
Collecting the hand pass, she took two steps, and with her third launched an All-Ireland winning score. Instinctive. Inspirational.
‘That’s Maebh Collins,’ Ryan explains. ‘She is cool and calm.’
‘I knew once Maebh kicked that ball, it was going over,’ captain Leah Carey adds.
‘Every time since I’ve asked her what she was thinking, she says “nothing”, and that’s true, it was in the moment. Even after she scored, she just ran back. She was unfazed by it all.’
Defender Allie Tobin knew the ball fell to the right person at the right moment.
‘At the time you think it’s a lot closer to the goal, but when you look back it’s a brilliant shot from the edge of the D,’ the Cork minor captain says, and it was that point that fired Skibbereen Community School to All-Ireland senior A glory. 2-10 to 3-6. Let the celebrations begin.
Maebh Collins scores Skibbereen Community School's first goal. (Photo: Matt Browne/Sportsfile)***
The West Cork invasion of Nowlan Park started earlier that Thursday morning. The team met at the school at 8.15am. Excitement was building – this felt and looked different.
The purple, black and white bunting and balloons that hung off the main gates and decorated the school, which will be ten years old in 2026, was a giveaway that this wasn’t an ordinary schoolday. A huge ‘best of luck in the final’ message dominated the two doors of the student entrance.
‘I don’t think there were nerves, we just wanted to play the game,’ recalls transition year student Ellen Connolly, a defender on this team.
‘We did get our new tops before we left so there was fierce excitement over that,’ Allie smiles, another reminder that this was a day like no other.
This was the first time that Skibbereen Community School had qualified for an All-Ireland football final. The ladies’ teams had come close in the past, losing three All-Ireland semi-finals on this journey, from junior B to senior C to senior A, the latest in 2024. But this year it was different. It clicked. And the players felt it too.
‘We knew we had a chance of winning something this season and everyone drove on,’ Ellen adds. That belief grew as this journey picked up pace.
Back-to-back Munster senior A champions after beating St Mary's of Midleton (3-12 to 1-7) in January. Then came the All-Ireland semi-final dismantling of Connacht champions Mercy College from Roscommon, as the West Cork school showed their class in a 4-11 to 0-3 triumph. It pushed them one step closer to glory, and there was a quiet confidence as they left the school grounds on Thursday morning, cheered on by students and teachers. Four busloads of supporters embarked on the 500km round-trip from Skibb to Kilkenny too, as did cars packed full of family and friends from the surrounding region.
This team of history-makers is drawn from several GAA clubs – O’Donovan Rossa, Castlehaven, Ilen Rovers, Tadhg MacCarthaigh and Clann na nGael. The school’s army of fans swelled as momentum grew.
On Thursday morning a grey Kia Sorento left Mohonagh, the townland a few miles outside Skibbereen that was put on the map by the only West Cork woman to ever win an Olympic medal, Skibb rower Emily Hegarty. By the end of the day, Mohonagh’s medal collection had expanded considerably. Patricia Carey was in the driver’s seat – her husband Ger, a popular Skibb publican, is a coach with the school team and her daughters Leah (captain) and Saorla are both involved. Ger’s brother Martin Carey and his wife Josephine were in the car too, making the trip to support their daughter Kate, and their two nieces. Kate’s biggest supporter, her grandfather John McNamara, also made the trip; he wasn’t going to miss the day this lethal young forward became an All-Ireland winner.
Skibbereen Community School's Kate Carey races away fromCaitlin Crowe. (Photo: Matt Browne/Sportsfile)***
Leah Carey is one of eight Leaving Cert students in this Skibbereen Community School senior football team. So too are Katelyn McCarthy, Hannah Sheehy, Becca Sheehy, Tara O’Regan, Maebh Collins, Eleanor Keating and Niamh O’Sullivan. Their days of walking these school corridors are coming to an end, as the next adventures wait to be discovered, but they’ll never forget this particular journey.
‘I think it was a bittersweet moment for all of the sixth years,’ says Leah, the Ilen Rovers player who captained this band of sisters who will forever be linked together by this triumph. The success is too fresh and these players are too young to realise this yet, but summiting their own Everest to win the All-Ireland senior A title is a magnificent moment that will be regaled for years to come. Its equivalent is St Fachtna's De La Salle College winning the now-closed Skibbereen school’s first – and only – Hogan Cup title (All-Ireland senior A) in 1991. That group of young footballers is etched in local sporting folklore, as will this Skibbereen Community School senior girls’ football team.
There are links between both camps – Skibb CS match winner Maebh Collins’s dad Fachtna Collins, a tour de force for club and county, was on Fachtna's team in ’91, as was Anna McCarthy’s dad Donal. They are family connections that joined these successes, 34 years apart.
It was the amalgamation of three Skibbereen schools – St Fachtna’s, Rossa College and Mercy Heights – that formed Skibbereen Community School, opened in 2016. It’s only a short trip back in time to when Mercy Heights won the All-Ireland PPS senior C ladies football title in 2010, beating Roscommon school Scoil Mhuire Strokestown in the final. One of Mercy’s star players was Mairéad O'Driscoll, a current Castlehaven footballer who now lines out for her club alongside several of Skibbereen Community School’s newest All-Ireland winners.
‘To put the win in perspective,’ O'Driscoll explained on ‘X’, ‘when Mercy Heights won senior C in 2010, most players didn't play for their home clubs as there were no teams. Today, the majority of the SCS team are playing/have played for Cork. The rise is incredible, big credit goes to the local clubs!’
As well as the coaching by the dream team of Ella Ryan, Anna Ward (the Skibbereen CS teacher is another key figure in this success story) and Ger Carey, the role and rise of the local GAA clubs gave the school all the pieces they needed to put together an All-Ireland winning jigsaw.
Niamh O'Sullivan, Hannah Sheehy and Becca Sheehy celebrate the famous win.***
‘The school is open ten years next year and I have been there the whole time,’ Ella Ryan explains. ‘I remember being up at the pitch one day and Eilis Bohane, who is gone a few years now, said there is a serious team here.
‘She said if we all forget about our club rivalries for a small while and come together, we could have a serious opportunity here. That moment felt like a change in culture, the belief that the players could come together, and this was before the clubs reached the high levels they are at now.’
West Cork ladies football is flying high. It’s never been better. Both Castlehaven and O’Donovan Rossa campaign at senior level, the latter after a remarkable rise in recent seasons that included an All-Ireland junior title – it means a number of the Skibbereen School players have normalised big games. Take Allie Tobin, a fifth year in the school and still only 17 years old – she is the current Cork minor captain and has now played in an All-Ireland final with her school, club and county, as well as several Munster and county finals. Allie has experiences to lean on when the going gets tough, like it did in the All-Ireland final against Loreto College last week.
‘We were a bit nervous when they came back and drew level, but we weren’t going to give up. You know in a game like that the opposition will have a period when they are on top so we kept going. They really pressed our kick-outs so we knew it was important to get the ball up the pitch, and that’s what we did,’ Allie explains, with the maturity of a player who has been there and done that. Remember, she hasn’t turned 18 yet.
‘We are all playing high-grade football, whether that is underage, adult or school. That makes a big difference. Playing top-class teams, you learn when to keep the ball, when to make the right pass, when to get back into your defensive shape. You also learn not to panic, keep trusting in the system and keep doing what you normally do.’
A few days after Skibbereen Community School’s triumph, Allie, Éabha O’Donovan and Kate Carey played leading roles in Cork’s latest Munster minor football championship win. Éabha and Kate combined for seven points. These are talented footballers. Sit-up-and-take-notice rising stars. Just last month Kate scored 2-10 for Ilen Rovers in a county U21C county championship game.
This group of young women knows how to win. They showed that again in their school colours. Look at the final play in the All-Ireland final. After Maebh Collins’ winning score, there was still time left. Crucially, Skibbereen Community School got their hands on the ball and won a free. Leah Carey had the awareness to stay calm in the storm. No panic. Instead, intelligent game management.
‘We got a free and one of the Cavan players asked the referee how much was left. She said “I don’t know”, but we heard someone else go “five, four, three” so I told Maebh, who had the ball, to kick it back to Allie who was free,’ Leah explains.
‘Loreto thought we were going forward so they didn’t press us. Maebh pretended she was going to kick the ball forward, turned around, found Allie, and the ref blew the whistle.’
Mayhem ensued.
Eleanor Keating of Skibbereen Community School celebrates after the final whistle. (Photo: Matt Browne/Sportsfile)***
Ellen Connolly remembers feeling relief at the final whistle because the game was so tight. Allie was surprised how fast the Skibbereen school’s supporters invaded the pitch. And Leah won’t forget the celebrations in the dressing room afterwards, with the cup taking centre stage. Katelyn McCarthy came up trumps here with two speakers and ‘We are the Champions’ was turned up loud. Time to celebrate.
‘To see everyone together was special,’ Leah says. ‘To have the whole panel there was great because this was a team effort, everyone played a role in getting this team to where we are, so everyone should be proud of their part in this story.’
The celebrations continued all the way from Nowlan Park home to Skibbereen. Goalkeeper Tara O’Regan, because she has Spotify Premium, became the DJ at the back of the bus. There was a stop-off in Horse & Jockey for food, a banquet for these young heroes who put their town back in the headlines, and would later that night fill the top of an open-top bus as the party continued in Skibb. A word here for Damien Long, who runs Dave Long Coach Travel – he’s the go-to man for open-top buses for homecomings in Skibbereen and he delivered again. His company was also emblazoned across the front of the special new jerseys the school wore on All-Ireland final day. Local support that made a difference.
‘He drove past us on the Bishopstown Road roundabout with the open-top bus!’ Ella Ryan laughs.
‘We went around Skibb twice on the bus,’ Leah adds, ‘The Square was where the most people were but there were still people coming out to cheer us on; there were people coming out of their homes to see what all the noise was about!’
A delighted Skibbereen Community School principal Anton O'Mahony welcomes back the victorious All-Ireland winning team on Friday morning. (Photo: Anne Minihane)
There was a welcome home to the school itself on Friday morning, and then the celebrations continued at Leah’s house that evening. When Ger Carey thought he had found some quietness in the spare room to watch the game again, Leah and the gang landed beside him to soak in those final ten minutes, and that glorious ending. The stuff of dreams, and this triumph will grow better with age, as will the stories. Take Hannah Sheehy’s first-half goal just before the break – her shot from distance dipped at the right time. Just like Maebh Collins, Hannah shot from outside the 20. Goal.
‘She said herself she shouldn't have kicked it!’ Leah laughs. But just like Maebh, Hannah’s braveness to back herself paid off, and she is an All-Ireland winner alongside her classmates and friends. This is one this group will never forget. Soak it in.
