Gaelic4Mothers prepare for their New York adventure

The excitement is palpable amongst Caitriona McLoughlin and her St Jude's Sports Direct Gaelic4Mothers&Others team-mates as the south Dublin club get ready for a once in a lifetime visit to the Big Apple next weekend.

Along with several teams from across Ireland – as well as a number of Stateside outfits – the Templeogue-based Jude’s are set to participate in a Gaelic4Mothers&Others Blitz that is being hosted by LGFA New York in Gaelic Park on Sunday 12 November.

This intriguing odyssey follows the recent one-year anniversary of their current Gaelic4Mothers&Others team being established. After an initial degree of hesitancy about joining the travelling party, McLoughlin is glad to be making the journey over to the US.

"This is the first opportunity really within the year to go anywhere and do anything," McLoughlin explained.

"When Marie Crowe [RTÉ Sport journalist and one of McLoughlin's team-mates] introduced the idea about it, I thought she was joking. Then suddenly we were having meetings in the bar, in the clubhouse after training on Wednesdays about it.

"It did seem like a massive thing, to ask a group of women to get away and spend that kind of money on themselves to do something. It was just an amazing idea and a fantastic opportunity. The numbers started to grow and I wasn’t sure, I was on the fence about it.

"Then my friend who I joined Gaelic4Mothers&Others with, Eimear, she said she was going and then I was like, 'Oh, I don’t know what to do'. I rang my husband and he said, ‘Oh my God, of course you’ll go’. So I was like, ‘okay, I’m going, that’s it, I’m coming too!’ It’s the location, it’s the venue. It’s just such a big deal. The idea that it’s the mammies and others that are going, it’s almost outrageous!"

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