Áine Kinsella has shattered the coaching ceiling by taking on role with Wexford’s men’s footballers

Carlow native Aine Kinsella, pictured with her brother James, will take up a coaching role with the Wexford footballers

Michael Verney

November 23 2022 02:59 PM

You can nearly count on one hand the number of women involved in a hands-on coaching capacity with a men’s team at inter-county level and that makes Áine Kinsella’s role as coach with the Wexford footballers all the more ground-breaking.

There have been a few outliers with the likes of Julie Davis (Armagh football) and Clíodhna O’Connor (Dublin hurling) – both strength and conditioning coaches – involved at the inter-county coalface in recent years along with Mags D’Arcy (Wexford hurling coach) but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Elaine Harte, Tipperary football goalkeeping coach, is another to join that rare air while sports psychologist Caroline Currid has enjoyed extraordinary success in both codes over the course of the last decade or so.

Currid, who has been central to All-Ireland triumphs via Tyrone (2008) and Dublin footballers (2011) as well as the hurlers of Tipperary (2010) and Limerick (2018, 2020-’22), is visible as part of John Kiely’s backroom team but not front and centre as Kinsella will be.

You could easily argue that Kinsella’s role in John Hegarty's coaching set-up breaks significant new ground for female coaches/managers within the GAA as no woman before her has scaled such heights in the intercounty sphere.

That may not be as surprising as one would think, though, given that just 20pc of coaches in Gaelic games across all four codes are female, based on a joint study of 10,400 coaches undertaken by the GAA, LGFA and the Camogie Association earlier this year.

Dubbed “the largest ever coach development survey undertaken in Irish sport”, it concluded that there was a major under-representation of females involved in GAA coaching with a significant portion of that 20pc involved solely at nursery and Go Games level.

As an association, the GAA has lagged behind when it comes to gender balance in many areas, including coaching, but Kinsella has earned her place at the top table having had successful stints at inter-county level in recent seasons.

Colm Bonnar (Carlow), Davy Fitzgerald and Darragh Egan (both Wexford) have utilised her as a hurling video analyst and statistician in recent years but she is now set to get her hands dirty with drills, small-sided games and much more in training and on match-day.

It must be hoped that her ascension to such a position can see more women in high-profile coaching roles, with former Meath footballer Vikki Wall adamant there is a “huge opportunity” for female coaches/managers to prosper in the GAA.

“I’d love to see more women in coaching to be honest. The two I’ve had in my career, Diane O’Hora and Angie McNally, who would have been in DCU, are both unbelievable coaches,” Wall told the Irish Independent earlier this year.

“So any experience that I’ve had with female coaches has been unbelievable. They are few and far between, even at club level, never mind inter-county level. So there’s definitely a huge gap for it.”

Five years ago, Roisín Jordan became the first female chairperson of a county board since the founding of the GAA in 1884 when taking the reins in Tyrone, while Tracey Kennedy also climbed through the ranks to take the top job in Cork.

While women have become a more central element in the GAA boardroom, progress in the coaching arena has been much slower with Harte, an eight-time All-Ireland winner with the Cork footballers, highlighting some of the challenges involved.

“You’re going into a male-dominated area,” Harte told this paper in January. “It’s hard to break ground. You need to have a strong character and make sure that your voice is heard. So there are a lot of barriers there, but none that can’t be broken.”

Appointments like Kinsella’s will help to break down those barriers even further and show others that there is a chance to follow in the Carlow native’s footsteps and climb the coaching ladder within the GAA.

Shattering a glass ceiling like this isn’t too much of a surprise given that Kinsella’s sister Marie is GPA National Executive Committee co-chairperson and her role with Wexford’s footballers increases the female profile within the men’s game.

Kinsella will be surrounded by men with Hegarty’s backroom consisting of Diarmuid O’Hanlon, Mick Casey, Joey O’Brien, Ciarán Deely, Darren Siggins, Matt Pearson and Arthur Dunne but this could be one giant leap for womankind in the GAA.