Transfer success for Aoife Clifford with Kildare All-Ireland victory

In their duel with Clare in Division 3 of the Lidl National Football League on 5 February of this year, Kildare manager Diane O'Hora handed a first run out to a player who would go on to be a key figure in a memorable season for her side.

A native of Cork, Aoife Clifford was playing her club football with Araglen Desmonds Buí on the Leeside until last year. However, she was already well settled into a teaching position at the Mercy Convent Primary School in Naas by this point and had been training with the Eadestown club that is located a little over four miles away.

After commuting to and from Araglen Desmonds for a significant period, she finally decided last November that she was going to join forces with Kildare captain Grace Clifford (no relation) in Eadestown.

Despite being a former Cork underage star, she initially didn't have any designs on a step up to senior inter-county action. Yet she ultimately completed a club and county transfer on the same day (24January) in 2023 and subsequently made her Kildare debut off the bench in a 0-09 to 0-07 league win over the Banner County in Cooraclare.

"It’s actually a bit surreal. I was even thinking of it there, thinking back to November when I decided I was going to finally make the move. I’ve been up here training with the Eadestown girls for the past two years before this, but I was always driving home to play with my club in Cork. It’s kind of hard to leave the home club," Clifford acknowledged.

"I decided to make the move this year and I hadn’t even thought of playing with Kildare at all. It was just like 'I’ll transfer to Eadestown, settle in there’. Then it was when Grace said it to me about the trials with Kildare back in November.

"I was kind of ‘oh God, will I go for it