For this week’s Spotlight On feature, we spoke to Dublin GAA star Niamh McEvoy.
The 31-year-old former All-Ireland winner, who got engaged to fellow Irish sports star Dean Rock at Christmas, is the host of the show on new Virgin Media Two and Virgin Media Sport AFLW.
In her exclusive interview with Goss.ie, Niamh spoke about her time living in Australia and playing for the Melbourne Demons, the biggest barriers in driving the visibility of women’s sports, and her upcoming wedding plans.
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You are hosting a new Virgin Media Two and Virgin Media Sport about the AFL Women’s league. Tell us a little bit about that.Â
Will Dawson got in touch with me the two of us would have a big interest in the AFL,. He’s followed it the past 6 years. We just thought there would be interest with the amount of Irish girls over there, some of our best Gaelic footballers have gone over to Australia and are playing in the league this season.
We just thought there would be a big level of interest, so we would facilitate a highlights show that focuses on the league itself as well as the Irish girls.
When did you first discover your love of GAA?
I started playing Gaelic football when I was the age of 12, so I played a long time. I’ve been on the Dublin senior football team for 17 years. I just recently won a club All Ireland with my club, which was very very special. My whole life basically I’ve had a love for football.
So there wasn’t a huge amount of media coverage of women’s sport in general, so the only women’s sports star that would really pop up in the media would have been Sonia O’Sullivan. I didn’t know many other sportspeople because they just didn’t get that exposure, so Sonia would have been someone I really looked up to.
In terms of the GAA I actually played with boys teams through my primary school and ended up having to play adult football really young because there was no girls football teams, but thankfully now all those structures in place. Even at my own club in Malahide there’s so many girls football teams. It’s great to see.
I think you often hear this trope that women’s sports don’t get as much exposure, they are not as interesting, but it’s kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy and like a vicious circle in my opinion. Where female athletes become acceptable to younger people and then do become role models, it leads to the game growing and the game improving.
I do think there’s a trope where people are thinking women’s and men’s sports shouldn’t be the same because it’s not the same, but we aren’t saying that they are both the same thing. We are just trying to say that the players deserve the same exposure. Because they don’t produce the same product, that’s fine, it’s a completely different sport.
In my club, 50% of the people playing are females, 50% of the population are females so why shouldn’t they get 50% of the coverage? We are a long way off that, but I suppose that would be the dream for many of us.
I lived in Melbourne and did two seasons with the Melbourne Demons. Melbourne the city itself was gorgeous, I can see why Irish people go over there and struggle to come back. They get a great summer, the summer is so good.
It’s such a big city and there’s so much to do, I would definitely go back for a holiday, but I am a home bird, so I was very happy to be coming home. I don’t think I could ever live there again but I can see the attraction.
We got engaged at Christmas, we have been very busy since then, but we did go and see one venue over the weekend and we thought it was gorgeous. We wouldn’t be into going around and seeing loads of different venues so we are really really happy with that. It’s probably likely that we will move forward with that venue.
It will definitely be an Irish wedding and all the other little bits will tag on as we go along, but probably won’t be for around 18 months anyway.
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I’m definitely focused on getting back playing with my club I’m really enjoying everything we are doing with Virgin Media at the moment. I feel like after the last couple of weeks, I’ve really found my feet and am enjoying the whole experience. Any opportunities like this that pop up again, I’ll definitely be putting myself forward for.
