Anna Galvin was holding back the tears during the closing stages of Sunday’s All-Ireland final – because even before the final whistle it was clear Kerry’s 31-year wait to lift the Brendan Martin Cup was over.
When Emma Dineen tucked home Kerry’s third goal of the match to give the Kingdom a 14-point lead over Galway, the magnitude of the moment hit Galvin. There would be no stopping Kerry, not on this day.
“When the third goal went in, I actually nearly started crying on the pitch,” she explained. “I was like, ‘Anna, there’s still four minutes left in this game, where the hell is your player?’
“And then Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh obviously went off to a rapturous crowd, deservedly so. That’s iconic. So delighted for her as well.
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“Yeah, so there was a little bit of emotion, probably teetering over the edge even before the final whistle. I was bawling [at the end], just so relieved, so happy. So many emotions. I was bawling, I was laughing.”
This was Galvin’s fourth All-Ireland final to experience as a Kerry footballer. As a 17-year-old she was part of the extended Kerry panel in 2012 when they lost the decider to Cork.
It took the Kingdom a decade to reach another final, and when they did Galvin was the team captain – though Meath proved too strong in that 2022 decider. Galvin was vice-captain last year when Dublin inflicted further All-Ireland heartache on the Kingdom.
But the 29-year-old occupational therapist was to the fore on Sunday as Kerry delivered a stunning performance to win a first All-Ireland since 1993. She scored a point and was commanding around the middle of the field throughout.
“We kind of knew we had a big performance in us,” said the Southern Gaels player. “We probably hadn’t played some of our best football this year, but we’ve been very businesslike and done the job that needed to be done in the semi-final, quarter-final and things like that.
“We kind of felt that we had a bit of a performance in us [for the final], we hoped.”
And despite the outpouring of emotion at the final whistle, Galvin says one of the key elements of their preparations this year was to ignore outside distractions.
“I suppose over the last two years, the first year we got there it was very emotional,” she recalled. “We kind of toned that down a little bit last year and we cut it out this year altogether. There were just no emotions, it was very much, ‘Next game, let’s get a job done here’.
“And I think we needed that because I suppose the energy, you don’t realise how sapping that is. Having gone out on the pitch with all that extra energy, that we didn’t have in other years maybe, it was probably a better approach for us.
“We had the luxury of doing that because you have to relish All-Irelands when you get to them as well, but because we had done that in previous years, we did relish them, but we didn’t get over the line, so this year we were able to be that bit more clinical and cold about it maybe.
“Even just, very run of the mill stuff, I suppose in previous years we might have had more team meetings.
“We might have had messages from home and videos and stuff in the hotel the day before, or maybe spending a bit too much time with supporters or family or people who were maybe not very close to us but were slightly outside the circle a little bit.
“As much as it’s so well intentioned, it’s tiring. You don’t realise it at the time but when you can take a step back from that it definitely helped us a little bit.”
It has taken Galvin over a decade in green and gold to get her All-Ireland senior medal but her midfield partner on Sunday, Mary O’Connell, is only 22 and made her debut in 2021.
Síofra O’Shea and Aoife Dillane are just 22 as well, Danielle O’Leary is only 21, Ciara Butler is 20 – so the future looks promising for the Kingdom.
“In my very first year we got to the All-Ireland, we lost obviously but I was like, ‘Jeez, this is cool, we’re going to be in All-Irelands all the time’. And you don’t realise how hard they are to come by,” said Galvin.
“You have to be able to react to tough situations in every game day, it’s tough to be consistently able to win. It’s not an easy thing to do and I hope that we can back it up now over the years to come.
“We have lots of young girls in the panel. Even though the lads [Declan Quill and Darragh Long] were kind of saying that this will probably be their last year and stuff like that, they were never not bringing in new fresh blood.
“There are so many young girls in that dressingroom, like I was [in 2012] doe-eyed, so hopefully this experience will stand to them in years to come as well.”
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