By Randal Scally
Soccer’s loss was camogie and ladies football’s gain in the case of Grainne Egan, who has been a county dual star for the past two years.
The sports all-rounder from Shinrone was a promising soccer player before deciding to concentrate on camogie, which was her first love. Remarkably, Grainne only took up ladies football four years ago and has become so good at it that she’s now a fixture on the Offaly ladies team as well as the camogie side.
“I’ll try my hand at any sport I can,” says the 25-year-old, who teaches English and PE at the Sacred Heart School in Tullamore.
“When I was younger, camogie and soccer were the sports I mostly played. I played soccer for North Munster in the Gaynor Cup from U14 to U17 level and was in with a chance of receiving a scholarship to play in America. But the pull of the GAA was too strong and that’s what I decided to stick with.
“I played camogie all the way up along with Shinrone and have been on the Offaly senior panel since I was 16. I had just started teaching in Tullamore when I was introduced to ladies football for the first time in my life at the age of 21! I said to myself, ‘I better learn how to play Gaelic football before I start coaching it in school’, so I joined Tullamore LGFA where a number of my past and present students are team-mates of mine.”
