Mee hopeful Treaty footballers can return to showpiece

On a weekend when her county's senior hurlers will be looking to add another All-Ireland title to their growing list of honours, Limerick ladies footballer Cathy Mee is hoping to take a big step towards doing the same this afternoon.

Back in 2018, Mee captained the Treaty women as they overcame Louth on a scoreline of 5-06 to 0-08 in the All-Ireland junior football final.

A native of Ballyorgan – who plays at club level for nearby Ballylanders in south county Limerick - she remarkably became the first player from her parish to claim an All-Ireland winner’s medal in more than a century.

Back on 20 November, 1898, the Flynn brothers, Paddy and Maurice, from the townland of Clovers, were on the first Limerick team (represented by the Kilfinane club) to win an All-Ireland senior hurling title.

In the delayed final of the 1897 championship, the Munster champions got the better of Kilkenny, the same county who stand in the way of Limerick’s current crop in their quest for a fourth successive Liam MacCarthy Cup at GAA HQ tomorrow.

Meanwhile, relegated from the intermediate championship in 2019, Limerick will be competing at the semi-final stage of the junior grade for the fourth time in as many years at Glennon Brothers Pearse Park today.

Their opponents, Fermanagh, defeated them in the last-four of the 2020 and 2022 championships, but Mee isn't overly fixated with those reversals.

"They fairly hammered us in the semi-final last year. We struggled to figure out what exactly went wrong that day, but Fermanagh were brilliant on the day as well," Mee said in advance of a game that was moved from its original Sunday slot to ensure it didn't clash with the All-Ireland hurling final.

"In fairness to them, they were a very strong team. We