KAREN DUGGAN IS happily torn between her two biggest sporting achievements.
But you get the sense that Peamount United’s 2023 league title win might just shade it for the former Ireland international and Kilkenny native.
“Up until this year, I would have always said the best day of my life was 2015 when we won the club All-Ireland, but this one’s right up there,” she tells The 42 in a wide-ranging interview ahead of Saturday’s trophy lift.
“I’m not gonna lie, this one means an awful, awful lot to me personally. I know it means a lot to the club but when I look back on my career, I think that in terms of football, this will be the standout season for me.”
Is there any one reason why?
Or is it a combination of everything — from player departures and the league’s move towards professionalism to Peamount’s underdog status — which will be detailed in a club feature on The 42 this weekend.
Duggan doesn’t hesitate to answer that one.
“It’s the atmosphere that was built, kind of against the odds.
“It wasn’t easy. We had to work so, so hard for this. There was a lot of blood, sweat and tears — a lot of tears mostly — along the way. I’m surprised James [O'Callaghan, manager] hasn’t blocked my number at this point! I’d say he regrets making me captain, but we made it through to the end and we’re still talking.
“It’s the commitment that everyone gave it, it was just completely different. Everyone committed to this thing at the start of the season that we didn’t know if it would work out, and it has. When you put a plan in place and it comes through the way it has, there’s something really satisfying about it. Obviously, for a club like us, it’s not the easiest to survive, never mind win. And that has made it extra special for us
“So yeah, this is definitely up there as one of my best, if not my best sporting achievement. When you achieve something with a team like this, when you are so close, it means more to me than any kind of individual thing.”
The 32-year-0ld midfielder is one of the most recognisable faces, and voices, in Irish women’s football. She won 35 caps during her time in the green jersey from 2013 to 2018 and was named Senior International Women’s Player of the Year in 2016.
She has been a leading light in the domestic league since its inception in 2011, winning four league titles, named Player of the Season in ’16 and ’20 and earning countless Best XI inclusions across her time at Peamount and UCD Waves.
And off the pitch, she’s become one of the most respected pundits in the country, regularly featuring on RTÉ TV coverage, Off The Ball‘s COYGIG Podcast and writing a column for The Irish Times.
This year brought one particularly new challenge between the white lines, though.
“I’ve never been captain of a team before,” Duggan explains. “But the girls made it so easy. They were brilliant with me, so encouraging of me stepping up to that role.
“I was nervous just because of the… not responsibility, I would always say that I take responsibility on the pitch, but more so just being that vocal presence. I know it probably doesn’t make sense because I work on RTÉ and do podcasts and stuff, but I wouldn’t be a person who usually be comfortable speaking in front of groups.
“But because we had become so close, it didn’t feel like a daunting task, being that person. There’s loads of leaders there now, so many people stepped up. It was very easy in the end.”
She was similarly apprehensive as she started out on her punditry journey.
Her profile rocketed this year during the Women’s World Cup, but Duggan wasn’t always as comfortable in the spotlight.
“I remember the first one I ever did was in Tallaght Stadium, I wore a chiffon dress and it was the worst thing I could have done…the sweat patches,” she laughs.
“I was so, so nervous. But you’re in a small studio and you’re talking one-on-one with someone and talking about something you know and love.
“Obviously, the journey that the Irish national team that has been on has been incredible since I started doing the punditry. For me, it felt like a way to almost stay connected to the team because I obviously stepped away from it quite young. Maybe in hindsight, I don’t know if it was a bit of a kneejerk reaction to do that…”
Quick digression. Care to elaborate? “I guess I just look back now and I was young: 27.
“I don’t have a huge amount of regret over it because I think I still would have retired a couple of years later, because you do have to go professional and that’s not something I wanted to do. I like the balance of working. Maybe I could have kept going, but maybe the standard would have been higher and I would have been pushed out. It was good that I got to go out on my own terms anyway.”
Back to the punditry. For now.
She finds the balance with her own football and full-time job with IT company EduCampus fine as it’s all she has ever known.
The adjustment to the role was the more difficult assignment.
“It wasn’t something that came naturally to me, but I do enjoy challenging myself. Now I really enjoy it, because I love football and at the end of the day, any extra thing I can do within football is an added bonus, because obviously I know I won’t be playing forever.
“My body’s slowing down a little bit, but in my head, I enjoy being busy. It keeps me out of trouble! As much as I can give to it, it gives more to me in that regard.”
And in a way, it has given her even more of an appreciation for playing.
She’ll be limited to a spectator and analysis role for long enough, so Duggan knows better than anyone that she must enjoy every moment with Peamount and not take anything for granted.
“Yeah,” she nods. “This, for me, has been the most stressful, but most enjoyable and rewarding year I’ve ever had in football. As long as I can still enjoy playing, I will because it gives me so much.
“Even your mental health, it’s huge being able to come down, forget about things and just hang around with your pals three, four times a week. People talk about it in such a serious way, and it is becoming more professional and all of that, but at the end of the day, it’s my hobby and I do it because I love it and I’m around people who I have been belly laughing with three, four times a week. It’s not as stressful as we make it out to be sometimes either!”
What a sporting life. So far.
What about the camogie? Where it all began on Noreside?
“I haven’t been able to play as much over the last few years as I would have liked to. I hope that when I finish playing soccer, I’ll still be able to play camogie because I’d love to do more of that and give back to Piltown.
“That’s where it all started for me. I still have lots of friends down there playing camogie, they’re my origins, they’re where I started, we all played every sport together growing up. I went down the soccer route rather than the camogie route.
“I’d still love to win a senior county final but obviously I’m aware that the years are ticking away for that too.”
Never say never.
After all, the Peamount chapter might not have even happened.
Duggan’s love for the club shines through with each word, perhaps never more so than when she’s telling the story of how she first got involved to round off the conversation.
“I nearly didn’t come to Peamount because I was really shy and kind of like, ‘Ah, Dublin… Big Bad Dublin,’” she grins.
She was in college in University of Limerick at the time and then-Peas manager Eileen Gleeson – the FAI Head of Women and Girls’ football now in interim charge of the national team – was on a Champions League recruitment drive.
“Eileen rang Julie Anne Russell and she rang me and I was like, ‘Nah.’
“I’d be best friends with Julie and we lived together in college, she said she’d be driving up and I said, ‘Sure look, I’ll come with!’ So thanks, Julie Anne, for dragging me out of my shell, to be fair. She did that at international level as well.
“I have a lot of people to thank for bringing me to Peamount. Obviously I briefly left before, and I wasn’t going to do that again. My most enjoyable years in football have been at Peamount and I’ve achieved the most in my career at Peamount and the people around Peamount have always been so good to me.
“If we’re talking about hindsight, that’s a regret I have. More than retiring from international football, I probably wish I’d never left Peamount.
“Because it is like home in Dublin for me, which is lovely to have.”
You can read more about Peamount United on The 42 ahead of their final game of the season against Sligo Rovers at PRL Park, Greenogue, on Saturday.
