Kilkenny Camogie are looking for your help in sending their All-Ireland winning senior team on holiday to mark the end of a “long and sometimes gruelling campaign” that yielded a Leinster senior camogie title and All-Ireland senior camogie title, with the Cats going unbeaten for the entirety of the 2022 inter-county season.
End of season holidays or trips abroad are a near staple in terms of Gaelic games, particularly around the men’s All-Ireland senior finalists in hurling and football. In years previous, the GAA have allocated grant funding to county boards to assist with team holidays but with the GAA and Camogie Association separate organisations, no mechanism for direct funding (to a similar level at least) is in place on the camogie side of the coin.
The funding for a team holiday, the last of which for Kilkenny was following their 2016 All-Ireland senior camogie win over Cork as the COVID pandemic had put the brakes on their 2020 celebrations, typically comes via local fundraising efforts – raffle tickets, bucket collections, local donors and sponsors.
Now, they’re hoping for some public support with a target of €40,000 to raise.
“After a long and sometimes gruelling campaign that began in cold and wet fields last January, the Senior Camogie team claimed the O’Duffy Cup in the All-Ireland final in Croke Park. While all the players are now involved in their club championships, they hope to relax and enjoy a team holiday in the coming months. Though they also won the All Ireland in 2020, due to Covid 19, celebrations were muted and there was certainly no holiday”, reads the fundraiser description, live on Gofundme.com.
“These players have given so much of themselves and provided such happiness and joy to the people of Kilkenny through the dark and lonely times of the pandemic right through to August 2022. They continue to do so by bringing the O’Duffy Cup and the Leinster Cup to clubs, schools and events, encouraging our young players to have dreams and hopes of their own.”
“If you would like to acknowledge the achievements of this super team, please consider contributing to their holiday fund. We understand that times are difficult, but everything helps, no matter how small.”
You can hear more on this on tomorrow (Tuesday’s) edition of the Camán Caint podcast) and you can find the fundraising details here at Gofundme.com.
