Sport

Down with this skort of thing: Why are we talking about the long-rumbling issue all over again?

Mary Hannigan: Urgent rule-change needed to ensure no embarrassing abandonment of Munster camogie final

Kilkenny's Katie Power and Dublin Aisling Maher wearing shorts before last Saturday's Leinster camogie semi-final. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
Kilkenny's Katie Power and Dublin Aisling Maher wearing shorts before last Saturday's Leinster camogie semi-final. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
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Mary Hannigan
Wed May 07 2025 - 14:41

Why, you may (or may not) be asking, are we talking about the long-rumbling skorts issue all over again?

Well, yet more controversy kicked off in Blanchardstown last Saturday when the Dublin and Kilkenny camogie teams took to the pitch for their Leinster semi-final wearing shorts.

As it’s in the sport’s rule book that players must wear skorts, the referee was obliged to tell the teams’ managers that if they didn’t change in to them, he would have to abandon the game. So, the players headed back to the dressingrooms, re-emerged wearing skorts and the game went ahead. Any player refusing to change would have been sent off.

You may (or may not) have some questions on the whole business, so here’s an effort to answer them.

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Remind us, what exactly are skorts?

They are, as you might suspect, a combination of shorts and a skirt – there’s an overlapping fabric panel across the front of the shorts which makes them look like a skirt. Under the Camogie Association’s rules, players must wear a “skirt/skort/divided skirt”.

What’s the problem with them?

Most players – 70 per cent, according to the Gaelic Players’ Association – find them uncomfortable, arguing that they restrict their movement on the pitch. They would, then, prefer to wear shorts, as they mainly do in training.

So why can’t they wear shorts?

Because at camogie’s last congress, in 2024, delegates rejected two skorts-related motions put to them – 64 per cent said no to a proposal that “skirt/skort/divided skirt” be replaced by “shorts” in the rule book, and 55 per cent rejected giving players the option to wear skorts or shorts.

Is this evidence that the GAA is an antiquated organisation run by a shower of misogynistic auld fellas?

Hold your horses – this has nothing to do with the GAA. If it did, you’d suspect it would have been sorted out long ago. While there are plans for the Camogie Association to integrate with the GAA, for now they are a separate organisation – so they own this issue.

Ursula Jacob, a camogie All-Ireland winner with Wexford, has criticised the rule that forces players to wear skorts. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
Ursula Jacob, a camogie All-Ireland winner with Wexford, has criticised the rule that forces players to wear skorts. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
But was it mainly auld fellas who voted at that congress?

No – the majority of the delegates were female. So leave the auld fellas alone.

There’s been a big reaction to what happened in Blanchardstown, then?

There has. Several current and former players have spoken out in opposition to the sport’s rule. Ursula Jacob, an All-Ireland winner with Wexford, wrote a column for us on Monday that reflected the widespread view on the issue.

Is this all Archbishop John Charles McQuaid’s fault?

It would be harsh to blame him as he died 52 years ago, but camogie’s history of ordaining what their players should wear – no matter how impractical – certainly tallied with his notion that women who sought to compete athletically in the vicinity of men were “un-Irish and un-Catholic”.

As the broadcaster and historian Myles Dungan noted, the Camogie Association supported him. In the 1930s, the association’s secretary, Seán O’Duffy, promised that it “would do all in its power to ensure that no girl would appear on any sports ground in a costume to which any exception could be taken”.

Cripes. The Camogie Association is looking like it hasn’t moved on much. Why don’t they just change the damn rule?

Because, strictly, it cannot be changed until a fresh vote on the matter at their congress in… 2027. There’s been talk that that vote could be brought forward, due to “exceptional circumstances”, to next year’s congress, but that might be a touch late.

Why?

Because the protests are amping up. Dublin camogie, for example, has instructed its referees to take no action if players refuse to wear skorts, with several wearing shorts across a number of league games on Tuesday night. The Cork and Waterford squads are considering wearing shorts for Saturday’s Munster final, which would see the game abandoned if the rules are enforced.

What a shambles. Is there any solution?

Now seems like a good time for the Camogie Association to either call a special congress or formulate temporary guidelines that would allow shorts to be worn. As the former Kerry footballer Paul Galvin put it, it’s all beginning to resemble “an episode of Father Ted”.

Down with this skort of thing?

Exactly.