ON THE RIGHT side of the path is a row of terrace cottages.
On the left are a couple of huge ships and stacks of freight containers.
Tucked along the harbour is the Stella Maris Rowing club with some smaller boats docked. Keep walking up Pigeon House Road and the Poolbeg Towers will loom into view. Just over the other side of Ringsend Park, though not quite visible, is the Aviva Stadium.
But what catches the eye first are the Ireland flags covering a first-floor apartment balcony looking out over this side of Dublin’s docks. One large tri-colour is draped over the railings with three more fluttering on poles above.
Printed across the front is not a message or a picture, just a name: Abbie Larkin.
The 18-year-old Shamrock Rovers forward is the youngest member of the Republic of Ireland squad heading for the Women’s World Cup in Australia. On the Sunday before she departs, The 42 is invited to the family home.
The excitement and fanfare is building but everything still feels so very normal now.
Her mother, Ethyl, has the kettle on the boil and a spread of scoff on the kitchen table to go with it. Robert, her dad, is waiting at the top of the stairs, and as he leads us through the front door Daisy, a cross between a shih tzu and a bichon frise, scurries out.
Amid the numerous pairs of runners in the hallway at the front door is a bag filled with footballs. “Larko” is written across one in blue marker. It’s well worn and beginning to fade – years of practice and dedication have brought her to this point.
Larkin is making a ham and cheese bagel, and Robert isn’t best pleased when she leaves the packet of ham out on the counter instead of putting it back in the fridge.
“It’ll go stale, Abbie.”
“Ok, Dad.”
“When I played for Home Farm we used to get letters back telling him to shut up on the sideline,” Abbie teases.
“Ah, I wasn’t bad, it was never anything vulgar,” Robert insists. “I’d just be encouraging her knowing she could do more but wasn’t.”
Abbie agrees: “Only when I wasn’t working enough; I’d just cover my ears, Dad. But I could be a bit of a class clown.”
“A messer,” her mother adds. “Now she knows the right times for it.”
On Saturday, Larkin went to the Longitude music festival with some friends, among them Ciara Giles, her former Home Farm teammate and granddaugher of the legendary Johnny. Another friend, Leah, made sure to roll out a usual wind up.
“This fella sits beside us on the bus, me and Gilesy, we call her Gilesy, and Leah has this thing where she likes to tell everybody that I play for Ireland. It makes me scarlet, honestly,” Larkin laughs, almost going red again just at the thought.
Her last weekend off at home before the send-off friendly with France tomorrow and heading Down Under the following morning also allows for some final preparations with her mam. They are just back from town after Abbie got her eye lashes done.
It’s a routine I have before the [Ireland] camps. It makes me feel fresh, makes me feel nice. Ready for the cameras, ye know,” she laughs.
That little hint of cheekiness goes hand in hand with a focus and determination that has been evident from the age of six, when she joined Cambridge Boys just around the corner. It was also there last summer when she left Shelbourne for Rovers.
Tough choices have never been shied away from, always met head on, like making the decision to leave school before finishing her Leaving Cert so she could live the life of a professional while enrolled in one of the the FAI/Education and Training Board Player Development courses.
“Obviously we discussed it together, I felt it was the right thing to do to give me the best chance for my career,” Larkin says.
“She’s so determined, when she puts her mind to something you believe in her,” Ethyl adds. “We used to sit in the stand with her when she was growing up watching the games in Tallaght, and she would always say it, ‘I’m going to be like her, I’m going to play like Denise O’Sullivan’. She loved her, idolised her, and now she’s playing with her.
“Of course getting an education is important, and she’s still on the course, but continuing where she was [in school] wasn’t going to get her where she wants to go in her life.”
Larkin is on the rise at a time when it feels as though the women’s game can offer a future for its brightest hopes.
“That’s what I want to do, it’s what I’m aiming for and working hard every day for,” she says. “I got picked for this [World Cup] squad but it could have just as easily been one of the other girls in my place. We all work hard but in football that doesn’t always mean you get the rewards.”
Her eyes are wide open to the industry she is already a part of.
Growing up, Larkin played Gaelic Games, tag rugby and even turned down a request from Olympic gold-medal winner Michael Carruth to join his gym when she got involved with boxing in primary school.
“When I started the boxing I thought, ‘This is fun, I like this’, but it was always about football for me. That’s my passion.”
Horses are the only other one that comes close, and showjumping had to be put on the back burner once her path eventually took her into Shels’ youth system, becoming the second youngest player to make their senior Ireland debut against Russia at the age of just 16.
“I fell off twice,” she recalls. “You know it’s going to happen. The horses are tame but they’re still a bit wild. You can get hurt badly in any sport, you can’t worry about it.”
“Well I did!” Ethyl adds. “I ran in when I saw ye falling off like that, I think it was only the second week, ah Jaysis!”
It was always much easier for Ethyl to watch her daughter play football. She played herself, a striker, and grew up in Donnybrook. Her “football mad” father Jimmy Lambert would bring her to the old Lansdowne Road. “If he was still alive he would be beaming from the rooftops about what’s happening now,” Ethyl says, her voice softening.
“He would be here with her morning, noon and night,” Robert adds, although it was music and not football that brought the couple together.
“I was a drummer,” he says.
“We met in a pub,” Ethyl adds.
“A groupie,” he teases.
“I was in me arse a groupie,” she snaps back in mock disgust, a packet of chocolate biscuits almost flung in his direction across the kitchen island.
Brandon, their eldest son, has maintained the musical side of the family in a band of his own. His bedroom across from Abbie’s has guitars on the walls, while hers has various Ireland mementos and a framed picture of Lionel Messi.
Still, Brandon helped teach her to play guitar, until she complained of her fingers getting too sore, and she also did enough drum lessons to learn how to play before, you guessed it, they clashed with football training. “Typical, I had to make the choice,” she says. “I knew what I wanted.
I love James Arthur, Harry Styles. Not sad music, but nice. The emotional side of it, ye know.”
World Cup fever is taking hold in Ringsend. Robert is one of 13 brothers and sisters, and one of Abbie’s aunties lives just across the courtyard. He counts 56 cousins dotted around this corner of Dublin alone.
One of them, Dundalk winger Daniel Kelly, trained with Abbie through Covid to help maintain their fitness. “He’s not happy now that I’ve got a higher rating than him on Fifa,” she laughs.
In the college in Irishtown where the FAI/ETB course takes place, another uncle has arranged through the city council and Google for a viewing of the first match with Australia.
“A big screen, bouncy castles and a big party for the kids,” Ethyl beams, as she pulls out her phone to tell us of a song written for her daughter by another local musician.
“Really?” Abbie replies. “I haven’t heard it!”
Ethyl does the honours and plays the recording that was sent to her.
We want to sing a song about Ireland
And a great women’s football team
We want you to gather and sing along
And share in the football dream
They made footballing history
And left us all in wonder
With true grit, courage and tenacity
And now they’re on the way Down Under
And on that plane there’ll be a girl
From dear old Ringsend town
Her name is Abbie Larkin
And now she’s Australia bound
Her name is Abbie Larkin
She’s the toast of Ringsend town
Her rise has been swift and, on the international scene, the guidance of head coach Vera Pauw pivotal.
Speaking before The Athletic published further allegations on Monday about her conduct while in charge of Houston Dash for one season in 2018, Larkin explains the positives of working in the environment she has cultivated.
Vera has this thing, it doesn’t matter how old you are, if you are good enough you will play. She never makes excuses and I thank her for that, I actually think she has more belief in me than I have in myself,” she continues.
“She told me at half-time in the Zambia friendly that I needed to believe in myself more. So that’s what I did in the second half, I just thought ‘I’ve nothing to lose here, express myself and I’ll be grand’. I have that belief when I play with Rovers, but when it comes to Ireland, I haven’t been doing it as much because I just want to do the simple things.
“I feel like I’m growing as a player and in this camp my confidence has definitely grown a lot, even in training I’m getting on the ball more and taking on players. I haven’t really done that with Ireland yet.
“The football is more intense, the fitness. I love the demands and having those expectations. In the Zambia game Niamh Fahey was behind me talking to me and telling me what to do, what to fix.
“What I want now is to get better and better so they don’t have to tell me. Everyone is demanding and looking for more, that’s what I want, I love it.”
Robert and Ethyl fly out a couple of days before the first game with Australia, a return to the country they almost settled in 20 years ago.
They will stay with another of Robert’s brothers who did make Sydney his home during that time, and will be travelling with him for the other group games against Canada in Perth and Nigeria in Brisbane, and possibly beyond.
“Australia just wasn’t for me,” Ethyl admits.
“I’d have stayed,” Robert says.
“So there ye go, I could have been an Aussie. I could have been playing for the Matildas,” Abbie jokes. “Ah no, Ireland is my country.”
“I swore I would never go back there,” Ethyl laughs.
“Now you’re going back,” Abbie smiles.