WHEN LOUISE NÍ Mhuircheartaigh was a young girl in the deep west of Gaeltacht Corca Dhuibhne, there wasn’t a women’s football club within an hour of her home place.
It was with divine timing, so, that An Ghaeltacht opened its doors to peil na mban in March 1999.
It didn’t take Ní Mhuircheartaigh long to sign up, registering on July 12, 1999, at just eight years of age.
“They were playing with the schools at the time and apart from that, they had nothing outside of school,” recalls Áine de Londra, founding secretary of the club now known as Cumann Caide Ban Chorca Dhuibhne.
“There was nothing else really for the poor créatúrs and they asked and they begged and the Gaeltacht club supported us.”
Almost 100 girls registered the following week from under-12s up to juniors, with Ní Mhuircheartaigh soon to follow.
When she first went to school, she only spoke Irish but she would emerge fluent in both English and Gaelic football.
She took to the O’Neills with innate eloquence, from her first days learning under Liam Ó Rócháin at Scoil an Fërtéaraigh to her first coach with the club, John Long, an All-Ireland winner with Kerry in 1975.
Now, that youngster who carried a football everywhere with her is on the cusp of leading Kerry to a first senior All-Ireland since 1993. She will be captain on the day. A fourth All-Star is assured. It would be no surprise were a Player of the Year prize to follow.
7 nóim #MTHvKER @meathladiesMLGF 0-00@kerryladiesfoot 1-02
— Spórt TG4 (@SportTG4) July 31, 2022
Cúl den scoth ó Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh! 😍
Louise pounces on a poor kick out to increase the lead for Kerry!#ProperFan
BEO/LIVE AR @TG4TV pic.twitter.com/KliG1gBNv8
She’s been pocketing such prizes all her life. Back in primary school, she was the youngest competitor in the first-ever Cumann na mBunscol skills competition to be organised for girls in Kerry in 2001. Regardless of her age, it was the red-haired fourth-class pupil who went home with the crown.
She took to handball, too, with All-Ireland medals into the double-digits between singles, doubles, and team titles representing An Ghaeltacht and Kerry.
Her parents backed her as those travels took her all across her county, province, and country.
“The sacrifices her parents made being from the west, you’ve to travel 30 miles before you get anywhere out of here, so they were behind her all the way between handball and football,” says de Londra.
“And (her older brother) Colm made phenomenal sacrifices for his club. He used to travel every weekend from Dublin to every game so she saw that dedication. They’re very close.”
Ní Mhuircheartaigh has worn the green and gold all the way up from under-12, joining the Kerry senior panel at 14, and making her debut in 2008 at the age of 16.
By then, she had already been awarded the Munster Ladies Young Footballer of the Year in 2007, receiving the trophy from then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the All-Star awards ceremony in Citywest Hotel.
“She was totally dedicated and she’d be first to training,” says de Londra. “She lived for it – it was her life. She always had a football in her hand no matter where she went.
“I can picture her with a Kerry jersey nearly down to her ankles. She was in with the under-12s at the time but she was only about 10. She just had the football in her hands all the time.”
By her early 20s, she was the star scoring forward on the first Kerry team to reach an All-Ireland in 19 years and led UCC to their first O’Connor Cup in 22 years, scoring 0-9 in the final.
Another 0-9 final haul helped Tralee club Na Gaeil to the All-Ireland Junior Club title at a time when Corca Dhuibhne hadn’t the numbers to field a team of their own. She then returned to lead her home club to their own Kerry and Munster junior titles.
Her college teammates dubbed her the ‘Female Gooch’, Radio Kerry compared her to Maurice Fitzgerald, and this week, joint-manager Declan Quill brushed off a question equating the pressure on her shoulders to that carried by David Clifford.
But it will be a standalone legacy for Ní Mhuircheartaigh if she can lead the Kingdom to its first All-Ireland in 30 years.
She knows there are no guarantees. She led Kerry to Munster titles in 2013, ’15, and ’17 but each year Cork or Dublin would come back to sting them by increasingly wide margins.
In 2018, Kerry were relegated winless into Division 2 of the League and didn’t find their way back up for four years. In 2021, they contested the Senior Championship relegation play-offs.
The path back to a final after a decade away looked as steep as Mount Brandon but they scaled it in 2022, with Ní Mhuircheartaigh nominated for Footballer of the Year in the process.
2023 has taken them even higher. A first National League Division 1 title in 32 years was annexed. Back-to-back All-Ireland finals were secured with 1-10 from Ní Mhuircheartaigh in the semi-final.
Kerry star Louise Ni Mhuircheartaigh was on fire against Mayo this evening 🔥 🎯 pic.twitter.com/i0Bal2pX2W
— Gaelic Statsman (@gaelicstatsman) July 29, 2023
In total, she has blasted 4-29 in the League, 2-20 in Munster, and is top-scorer in the All-Ireland series with a further 2-24.
When Kerry defeated Sunday’s opponents Dublin this year in both League and Championship, Ní Mhuircheartaigh was named player of the match on each occasion, as well as subsequently picking up the July Player of the Month gong.
Through the highs and lows, the Irish and PE teacher at Mercy Mounthawk has remained a constant, calm presence, while also campaigning for fairer play for the women’s game.
That included last year advocating for greater access to the Kerry GAA Centre of Excellence, where a banner of her hangs outside the front entrance alongside Maurice Fitzgerald, Seán O’Shea, and hurler Shane Conway.
“She’s such a humble, quiet girl. She never changed,” says de Londra.
“She just loves where she lives, under the Three Sisters and Smerwick Harbour, and walks Béal Bán Beach and swims in Béal Bán and always, always comes home
“And loves her friends, always kept in contact with her friends. Everybody knows her and the young ones look up to her.”
In her 16th season of humble dedication to the Kerry cause, she’d love to bring the game’s biggest prize back home with her.