Dublin ready to make mark in post-Mick Bohan era

You have to go back to 2016 for the last time the Dublin's women footballers began the year without Mick Bohan at the helm.

After coming within a whisker of Cork in that year’s All-Ireland final, the Clontarf native returned for a second stint with the aim of bringing more success to a side that had just one Brendan Martin Cup to its name and was tasked with ending Cork’s stranglehold on the competition.

In his first season he landed ultimate honours. It took Meath’s incredible breakthrough in 2021 to deny the Dubs five-in-a-row.

A final title under his watch was added in 2023 before he took the decision late last year to step away.

His legacy in the capital, and indeed across the women’s game, is firmly cemented.

"He changed the face of Dublin ladies," says Carla Rowe, speaking at the launch of the 2025 Lidl National Football League.

"With Mick, when he came in, he came in from the men’s side (Dublin Under-21s skills coach and Clare coach under Colm Collins), but there was no step in between the men and the women.

"What the men had, that was the expectation for the ladies – in my eyes I think it was one of the first set-ups to have that, there was no reason for us not to have what our counterparts had. That was a huge thing. In terms of the game and personally what he has done for me as a player and off the field and everything, you couldn’t ask for anything more."

Derek Murray and former Dublin footballer Paul Casey are now at the helm having been promoted from Bohan’s backroom team. Casey has been involved for the last seven years so there is a form of continuity.

"It is so fantastic then to have the two lads who worked with Mick and picked up so much from him over the last couple of years," Rowe says. "Now to have them step