Sisters line out for four different teams at Mayo league shield finals

THE recent growth of ladies Gaelic football in Mayo was perfectly encapsulated in Bekan on Sunday when two sets of sisters played against each other for four different clubs.

The Division 3 Shield final saw Eilis Maloney’s Ballinrobe lose 3-9 to 1-5 to a Kilmaine team featuring her younger sister Claire. At the exact same time, Mae Hession (20) of Ballyhaunis was doing her best to contain a victorious Claremorris side spearheaded by her 18-year-old sister, Bree.

Mayo LGFA is half a century old, but the spike in new clubs in recent years has seen similar sibling rivalries develop across the county.

Take South Mayo alone, where Ballinrobe, Kilmaine, and Shrule-Glencorrib had no adult LGFA teams before 2014.

It was that year that Claire Maloney joined the newly-formed Kilmaine LGFA - which held its ten-year anniversary celebrations at the weekend.

In 2022, her older sister, Eilis, joined up with Ballinrobe when they fielded their first adult ladies team in many years.

But much like Margaret Thatcher, the Maloneys weren’t for turning.

“I wasn’t going to start changing sides at that point,” Claire told The Mayo News. “They did ask me, but I said I couldn’t leave the girls in Kilmaine.”

It wasn’t the first time herself and Eilis had played against each other. But with it being a shield final, there was naturally that extra bit of mischief in the build-up.

“The tensions were building yesterday evening. I saw her clothes on the line and was going to maybe hide them or light them on fire but I said I’d better not! So I did the good thing and I took them in as well as my own,” smiled Claire.

Eilis, who has captained the Ballinrobe ladies in the past, is no stranger to mind games any time Kilmaine are up.

“The last time we played them Claire was giving out to me after the match for being dirty,” Eilis told The Mayo News on Sunday evening.

“She said you need to apologise to your marker and all this, you were very dirty, slagging. That was going on now during the week.”

With Claire lining out at corner-forward and Eilis at wing-back, their first and only contact on the pitch was for a handshake and a photograph immediately after the game.

The family was equally divided. Their mother, Carmel, roared on Ballinrobe in the midst of legions of Kilmaine followers while her soft-spoken husband Vinny - who sponsors the Ballinrobe jerseys - kept his counsel.

All the above was confirmed to The Mayo News by Eilis’s boyfriend, Andy, an independent witness to proceedings.

Further east, the Hessions enjoyed their own little bit of sibling rivalry as Claremorris got the better of Ballyhaunis in the Division 2 Shield final on a score of 1-9 to 1-5.

“We both played for Eastern Gaels up to U-12s and then we weren’t obliged to go to any club. We were in Brickens, so we could go to any club,” Bree told The Mayo News. “It comes across a bit weird, but it does kind of make sense.”

“We went to school here in Bekan and just at the time Ballyhaunis was a team I was on and she went to Claremorris,” added Mae.

Contact between the two in the final was minimal, despite Bree lining out a centre-forward and Mae being stationed at full-back.

“It should have happened sooner!” said Mae in a blunt piece of post-game analysis.

“There was a bit of tension [in the house] during the week but it’s done now. I was trying to suss her out,” she added.

“She was trying to ask me a few questions but I didn’t tell her,” smiled Bree, a county and provincial junior medallist with her club and a star of many Mayo underage teams.

It’s unlikely to be the last time these siblings throw on opposing jerseys.

Claire Maloney is looking forward to seeing Kilmaine’s men ‘do the double’ at home to Ballinrobe on Friday evening while the Hessions are expecting to face each other in the upcoming intermediate championship.

But at the end of the day, as Eilis Maloney says: “It’s just a bit of craic, once we go out and enjoy it that’s the main thing.”