Caoimhe Maher helping bring Camogie to a new audience

Tipperary open their All-Ireland Championship campaign against Waterford this Saturday at The Ragg at 4.30pm

By Thomas Conway

Social media super stardom was never something that attracted Caoimhe Maher, but a few weeks ago the Burgess-Duharra playmaker embraced a new initiative recently rolled out by Tipperary Camogie’s excellent public relations team.

Maher took part in what is known as an “Instagram Takeover” of Tipperary Camogie’s Instagram page, showcasing to the world a day in the life of an elite inter-county athlete. Go watch - you won’t regret it.

In a fascinating series of videos and clips, Maher detailed an average day in her world, exposing everything from her diet and training habits to her daily working life. Viewers were encouraged to ask questions, which Maher addressed elaborately in front of the camera, effectively exposing all elements of her high-octane, high-tempo lifestyle to the masses.

The idea - and credit to Tipperary Camogie here - was superbly innovative, the results hugely revealing. Maher admits that she was never a particularly prolific user of social media, but on this one day at least, she let rip.

“It was definitely very new to me - and I think I actually said that in the first video I posted that day,” Maher revealed.

“To be honest it’s not something that I do a lot, I wouldn’t post a huge amount on social media. Obviously, I’m on social media and I use it, but I don’t publish stuff that regularly. So, I wouldn’t have been a hugely open person in terms of social media, but it was definitely new, it wasn’t something that I knew how to take on for example - I had seen Mairéad (Eviston) do it previously so I was lucky that there was a kind of a structure there that I could use.

“It was actually very time-consuming; I was quite surprised at how much time it actually took! But I enjoyed it. Geraldine (Kinane) and the Tipperary Camogie PR team do so much to promote the game here in Tipp, and, if it was going to be the case that I could help raise the profile in any way, then I was always going to be up for it. When I was asked to do it, I couldn’t say no!”

As a camogie player, Caoimhe is refined, as a person she is equally polished. Candid and outgoing, the Burgess native speaks about her life as an elite athlete with openness and honesty. The Instagram thing was a leap into the unknown, but she hopes it generated interest amongst the younger generation in particular, and perhaps spurred them to keep playing camogie. Drop-out rates for young, teenage girls are a serious problem in today’s society.

Maher hopes that by participating in that initiative, by providing an insight into what life is like for a player at her level, she will have inspired others to pursue a camogie career, or indeed just keep playing for fun. And that’s the thing isn’t it - it has to be fun.

Maher admits it herself. She “absolutely loves” playing, loves the cut and thrust of a high-pressure game, the atmospheric cauldron that is Croke Park or Semple Stadium or any of the flagship venues which she’s been lucky enough to compete in.

For her the enjoyment factor is huge. It outweighs any potential negatives, like excessive pressure or media scrutiny. She adores the lifestyle too, the carefully choreographed, minutely detailed training agenda. Things have changed since 2012, when she first made her Tipperary inter-county debut, but the enjoyment has remained a common theme.

“I really really enjoy playing,” she added.

“I wouldn't be doing it if I didn’t absolutely love it. And I really enjoy all of the different things that come with that. So, for example like the schedule, having your week planned out before you - it’s very organised, very structured, and that’s something I really enjoy.

“I suppose with things like social media, with the growth of women’s sport and how much more people are talking about it, those are things I’ve had to adjust to - talking to the media, doing things like interviews and stuff like that. It wouldn’t have been the case that there was much of that when I first started playing at inter-county level with Tipperary.”

Talent advisor

Back then she was a fresh-faced teenager, straight out of a secondary school. Now she’s working full-time, in a profession that allows her to invest fully in her camogie career alongside her working life. Definitions of the job vary, but in essence Maher is a ‘talent advisor,’ an individual tasked with identifying potentially talented work candidates and doing her best to recruit them to work in the company. She enjoys the job, but crucially, it enables her to work from home most days of the week - an essential benefit for anybody with her kind of lifestyle.

“I was asked this question the other day as well and nobody seems to know what it is, but basically, I pretty much work in recruitment - kind of something similar to ‘internal talent acquisition,” she reveals.

“I’m fortunate because it’s just your usual working hours, your standard forty hour week or whatever, but I suppose for me one of the luckier things about my role is that I can do a lot of my work from home - which to me is very important for fitting other things in as well.

“Obviously, a lot of that would be training, and being able to organise myself for things like training and matches. So, for example, if I’m at home I can make sure that I’m eating at all of the right times, I can prepare my meals during the day, I can do all of those things because I’m not losing the few hours that others might spend commuting to and from work.”

You can’t interview a member of the Tipperary senior camogie panel and not ask that one, obvious, burning question; do they have an All-Ireland in them? Maher’s answer is interesting. She doesn’t obfuscate or dismiss the question, but instead gives a more philosophical answer.

Tipp, she feels, are within touching distance of that All-Ireland crown, but it’s not something that occupies her mind incessantly. It’s a cliché but Denis Kelly’s side are taking it one game, one step at a time, gradually building confidence as they venture deeper into the 2024 season.

“Ultimately right, the goal for any of us playing at this level is to go and win an All-Ireland medal,” she says confidently.

“For anyone playing competitive camogie that goal would be in the back of your mind. But I don’t think it’s something you can concentrate on every day or think about each time you go out. You really have to take each day as it comes. Looking too far ahead into the future is really going to do you no good altogether. You have to be able to make the right decisions, at the right time, in the right moment, on the exact day. But yes, it would always be in the back of our minds - that’s what’s driving us deep down.”

League final

Confidence was sky-high following the National League final success. That was a special moment for Maher and teammates, but the half-forward-turned-defensive sweeper doesn’t want it to be the defining moment, the crescendo of Tipp’s season.

They take on Waterford next Saturday in the first round of the All-Ireland Championship, and that, is when the real Tipp will be revealed. The Déise have consistently gotten the better of Tipp in recent encounters, dumping them out of last year’s All-Ireland Championship campaign at the semi-final stage, before defeating them in this year’s league and in the recent Munster Championship opener.

Psychologically, Waterford have the upper hand, but Maher isn’t fazed. If anything, she feels the side has benefited from those defeats, in terms of learning lessons and refining their overall tactical gameplan.

“Waterford are a very good team,” she says.

“They’ve had their homework done every time they’ve come up against us, and you would expect that, at this level. You expect teams to be prepared.

“But I suppose looking towards the next day, obviously the Munster Championship loss has just given us even more motivation to go and beat them. And obviously they beat us in the League as well, but that was a little bit different. Ultimately that defeat in the League probably turned things around for us. We had a really good chat after that game as a panel, because we weren’t necessarily happy with how things had turned out, and we kind of drove on from there and eventually won the League title.”

Watch Caoimhe Maher in action and the first thing you notice is her camogie intellect. The Burgess-Duharra club-woman knows the game inside out, and her tactical awareness is perhaps one of the reasons she has become so versatile in terms of role and position. She talks about adapting to different gameplans to adjusting to varying circumstances on the field, adding that Tipp have evolved into a more flexible side over the course of the past year.

Manager Denis Kelly, himself a clever tactician, has moulded this Tipp team into a different animal in 2024. They’re now far more versatile, far more willing to alter their approach, and that, in a competition as competitive as the All-Ireland senior camogie championship is, could prove vital.

For the first time in years, Tipp enter this year’s All-Ireland Championship as one of the front-runners. There’s every chance that, come this August, players clad in blue and gold could be surmounting the steps of the Hogan Stand to collect camogie’s most coveted piece of silverware, the O’Duffy Cup. Dream it maybe, but Maher knows it’s far too early to think about those possibilities.

Right now, she’s just focused on her game, on prepping meticulously for what should be a belter of a championship opener. Waterford’s and Tipp’s fate seems to be intertwined these days, but if the Premier are to succeed in their 2024 quest, they will need to overcome this weekend’s opponents. It won’t be easy, and it could turn ugly, but ultimately, it’s just one step on what will hopefully be a much longer journey.