'When I was young I didn’t have a team to look up to in Downings' - Amy McLaughlin

The gentle lilt of the waves rolling onto the shores of Downings Beach is a scene of timeless serenity. But this haven for surfers and holidaymakers is now buzzing with a very different kind of energy.   

Talk of tides has given way to chatter about Downings ladies football with the senior side set for the biggest match in their club’s history.  

On Sunday, the team will step onto the pristine turf of Parnell Park for the All-Ireland Junior Club final, a moment that feels like both a culmination and a beginning when they square off against Mungret St Paul’s of Limerick.   

One of the team’s stalwarts, 21-year-old Maynooth student Amy McLaughlin, is savouring the occasion while keeping her feet firmly on the ground.  

It’s new territory for her and her teammates but one they are embracing with open arms.  

“All the work is basically done at this stage and I don’t think the nerves have hit any of us yet,” she says, her voice carrying equal parts of anticipation and poise. “It’s really just an exciting time.”  

Exciting, yes — but also exacting. Downings’ journey to this point has been anything but straightforward. The margins between victory and defeat were wafer-thin throughout the campaign.  

An extra-time victory over Warrenpoint in the Ulster final, followed by a 1-7 to 0-7 point win over Kilcock two weeks ago with Sinead McBride’s golden goal proving the difference in the end.  

“I suppose some of the games we’ve won they’ve all been extremely tight,” McLaughlin admits.   

“They were won with last-minute blocks, great scores, and fantastic saves, so we’ve probably made hard work of every game we’ve played in considering our four-point win against Butlers Bridge in Ulster was our biggest gap and even that was a seriously tight game too with them missing a penalty.”  

That resilience and the ability to hold steady when the stakes are highest have defined this team’s character.   

For a group that began the year with modest aspirations, their ascent is all the more remarkable.  

“At the start of the year, our plan was to win the Junior championship, and anything after that was a bonus,” McLaughlin admits.   

“We took a lot from Dungloe last season considering they got to the Ulster final after beating us in the county final, and we knew we weren’t too far away from getting to where Dungloe was.  

“It all took a bit of time, and a lot of hard work, but thankfully in every game we’ve managed to get over the line.”  

Now, Downings has gone further than any of their predecessors in the club, galvanising a community along the way. With home wins in the Ulster semi-final and All-Ireland semi-final, the team has turned their picturesque village into a fortress of support.  

It only highlights further how far the team has come from being only a simple group chat to gauge interest in 2016, to forming a side the following season to being the first team in the club to be promoted to Division 1 football for the first time in 30 years.  

“You can see how much the support has grown,” says McLaughlin. “Even having the Ulster semi-final and the All-Ireland semi-final as home, I’ve never seen Downings so busy.   

“The place is just so excited, and everyone is just so supportive. They’re following us every step of the way, so we want to do it for them because it’s all anyone is chatting about at the minute.  

“Whenever I was growing up, I didn’t have a team to look up to in Downings,” McLaughlin reflects. “But now the younger girls in our club are looking up to us, so it’s nice to be seen as role models to the younger supporters in the club.”  

The seeds of this success were planted years ago, nurtured by underage coaches who believed in the potential of players like McLaughlin and her teammates.  

“I came into the senior team a year after it was set up in 2018,” she says. “We won the U-14 county final that year and there were eight or nine involved in that team who are now involved with the seniors, so a lot of praise has to go to the underage managers who believed in us and brought us through to senior level.”  

For McLaughlin, the continuity from those early days to this All-Ireland final has made the journey even more meaningful.  

“I’ve been playing with those eight or nine girls since I started playing GAA, so to be with them now in an All-Ireland final is amazing.”  

Now, Sunday’s final is an opportunity for the Downings team to leave an indelible mark on their club’s history, one last surge toward the ultimate goal.  

They know how to prevail under the most pressurising moments and still succeed. They especially know there are no marks awarded for artistic merit in championship.   

Let that be their epitaph for 2024.