Halligan's Wee County looking to take the Royal route upwards

They might be their nearest neighbours and biggest rivals from a sporting perspective, but that hasn’t stopped Aoife Halligan and her Louth team-mates taking inspiration from the recent achievements of the Meath footballers.

Back in May 2019 at St Tiernach’s Park, Meath were crowned Lidl National Football League Division 3 champions with a 4-11 to 1-07 final victory over Sligo. A TG4 All-Ireland Intermediate Championship success followed in December 2020, before the Royals pushed on to claim the Division 2 and Division 1 leagues in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Meath were also crowned All-Ireland champions in these latter years and will be looking to pick up the Brendan Martin Cup for a third consecutive season in 2023.

It is Division 3 that Louth currently find themselves in, with four wins from as many games to date, and the Wee County have their sights on the same piece of silverware that sparked Meath’s remarkable run of success in the modern age.

"It was their mindset that really carried them through those years. After failing, they just got themselves back up. Trained even harder and got even fitter. More physically stronger. They went and did that. They’re our neighbours and there are girls that would be very familiar faces around us being in college at the same time as those girls," said Halligan.

"It just makes it all seem a bit more real to us and that we could possibly do that as well. They’re a huge inspiration to many of us on our team and obviously what they’ve done is amazing. It’s just such a success story and especially being intermediate one year and then the next year winning senior. It’s just amazing."

In fact, there is a strong Meath connection within the Louth backroom team at the moment, with manager Kit