Unladylike

After first emerging in the 1920s, ladies Gaelic football was soon sidelined; breathless women chasing after a football was just too unladylike for the powers that be. Despite this resistance, the sport became a popular novelty act at local carnivals. And when the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) was founded in Tipperary in July 1974, fifty years of extraordinary growth were set in motion. From writing the rule book to a membership of nearly 200,000, the earliest All-Stars to game-changing partnerships, this definitive history captures that unstoppable journey to becoming a national sport and so much more. Lavishly illustrated and drawing from national, club and personal archives, UNLADYLIKE is for the players, the fans, the kit-washers, the sandwich-makers and the supporters alike, and confirms the best is yet to come.  

HAYLEY KILGALLON is a PhD student at the School of History in University College Dublin. Her research area is the history of women's sport in Ireland with a particular focus on ladies' Gaelic football and she has contributed on this subject to RTÉ, BBC Gaeilge and numerous journals. She has been a judge for the Young Social Innovators Ireland Awards and has played Gaelic football at club level in Sligo, Boston and Dublin.