ANN DOWNEY HAD been working with waste management company Greenstar for almost eight and a half years when the bombshell news was delivered in the summer of 2011.
Downey was one of 19 people being laid off in the latest round of cuts, and she admits that losing her job was “soul-destroying”.
But Downey, winner of 12 All-Ireland inter-county medals during her playing days, is nothing if not resilient.
It wasn’t long before she had sourced fresh employment with Doheny Wheelie Bins in Kilkenny.
Downey was glad to be back at work, admitting that she found twidding her thumbs difficult to cope with.
“I had so much time on my hands,” she recalls. “At home with Daddy, he was getting comfortable having his breakfast, dinner and tea the normal time but I wasn’t meeting anyone and I missed meeting people.
There were days when it was hard to get out of the bed, to be honest.
“But Martin (Doheny) threw me a lifeline and I’ll be forever grateful for it.
“I worked all my life and it’s hard for anyone to lose their job.
“I can really empathise with them and I had a long time to think hard about what life’s all about.
“But I had my health, family and friends, and I can really appreciate that now.
“He (Doheny) saved my life. I had worked all my life, that’s what I do, what I enjoyed.
“Before I took that job, I had a conversation with Martin and I told him that I could be missing for a day or two. That was important, too, that you get the backing of the people you work for.”
At the time, Downey was manager of Kilkenny’s senior camogie team. She’d previously been involved with the juniors when they won the All-Ireland in 2002, before taking the senior job from 2009-2011.
In 2009, Kilkenny lost the senior final to Cork, by eight points. Eight years later, eight players were still present when the Cats finally won their first All-Ireland senior crown since 1994, with Downey at the helm.
There was fair symmetry at play on a number of levels. Downey was captain in 1994 when Kilkenny last lifted the O’Duffy Cup before she masterminded the ending of a famine.
Naturally, she looks back on the 2016 year “with great satisfaction.”
Downey says: “To be quite honest, I think we were fortunate enough to win the League and All-Ireland titles but it was a brilliant year.
“In all the games we were involved in, we were only beaten twice.
“The last time I was involved, I had Katie Power and Denise Gaule and they were only children, then, really, youngsters playing against a mature team like Cork.
“Like every sport, you will have a team dominating for a while but the circle goes around.
I played in ’94 and was lucky enough to be captain but the levels of skill and speed in the game, compared to when we were playing, are unbelievable.
“Under the late Tom Ryan, it was laps and running in and out from the end-line to the 21 but now the girls are doing their core work and drills are done with the ball.
“It has improved and is as good as the hurling, any day.
“Kilkenny wouldn’t have been noted for being a big, strong team, more petite girls but they worked on their strength, core and first touch and they definitely have improved.”
To the point where they’re now All-Ireland champions and Downey’s revelling in it.
“The whole thing has taken off in Kilkenny,” she says.
“The girls realise and appreciate how important it is for Kilkenny and to the people who have rowed in behind them.
“They’re still going around with the cup three months later and while it was soul-destroying to lose in previous All-Ireland finals, the girls carried that hurt from the times they were beaten.
“There are some great camogie players in Kilkenny that didn’t win an All-Ireland. I was fortunate enough during my career but I can tell you matches that we lost and how we lost them. That’s something that never leaves you.
“You have to remember them, they have to push you.
“I had been there when Kilkenny won their first junior All-Ireland, as a selector, and manager when we won our first intermediate (2009).
“In the back of my mind, I wanted to be involved in the senior team and Paddy Mullally and myself had a long conversation.
“We had worked together down in Waterford IT and we said we’d give it a go, provided we could bring Conor Phelan on board with us.
“I had worked with Conor at WIT too and Conor was trying to sort his health issues as well.
“In fairness to Conor, he was at all of the League games and brought a calmness to the thing. Liam Egan came on board as physical coach and the girls bought into everything we asked them to do.”
With Downey as manager, and former Kilkenny hurlers Mullally and Phelan on board as selectors, the mix was a heady one and the players reacted.
Influential Kilkenny county board figures Ned Quinn and Jimmy Walsh were also hugely supportive, Downey explains, and she also enlisted the services of Noreen Walsh, who has been working with the Kilkenny senior men’s team as dietitian since 1998.
Two doctors, Martin O’Brien and Fergus Heffernan, were also employed and Downey knew that she had what she wanted.
“It was the first time I’d ever worked with a full team,” she reveals.
“We never had a doctor before. You might be lucky to have a nurse with you on the team if you ever had a knock but this was really professional, and everyone working for a common cause.”
There would be no backing down, not even during the traditional pre-match All-Ireland final handshake when Cork’s Hannah Looney and Kilkenny’s Colette Dormer were involved in an altercation.
“When you get to an All-Ireland final, you don’t know what’s going to happen but the girls were totally focused,” says Downey.
“We knew it would be rough and tough at some stages and their character tested, right from the get go.
“But we were ready for the battle and what a battle it was. Something the girls will appreciate is when you wake up on a Monday morning after winning an All-Ireland, it’s a great feeling.
“The next question is ‘did I play well?’
“If you did, it’s extra special. There wasn’t a girl on the team that could say they had a bad game.
“That was really pleasing. We made changes only because girls ran themselves ragged, to try and freshen up the thing and keep the pressure on Cork.”
Downey, of course, could only do much.
“When you’re on the field, you can do something about it, if you’re playing badly or things are not going right.
“Being a manager, it really is special to be honest but they cross over the line, they’re on their own, and you’re hoping they play as well as you know they can.
“That All-Ireland final, it was such an advertisement for camogie, with Cork adding to that.
“It’s great to know that you had some little part to play, and Kilkenny winning after 22 years.
To do so in such style, everyone hurling so well and having a great game, that’s hard to describe.”
Thoughts are now turning towards 2017 and Kilkenny’s defence of their League and All-Ireland titles.
And Downey knows better than most what lies in store.
“A big battle ahead of us, to be quite honest.
“It’s going to take a massive effort to put another All-Ireland together but I’m looking forward to it.
“We have the talent, we know it’s not going to be easy and there are so many good teams looking to knock us off our perch.
“But we’ll prepare well and see what happens in 2017 and what the year brings.
“Everybody’s staying on board, management team and panel, and we’ll have a few that will add to it from the intermediate set-up, a bigger pick.”
With Downey in charge again, there’s no limit to what Kilkenny can achieve.
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