STOCKHOLM: Camogie players in Sweden have turned the clock back by wearing a kit from a bygone age in a show of solidarity with colleagues in Ireland currently protesting for the right to wear shorts.
The Irish sport hit the headlines this week for all the wrong reasons with players, tired of a rule outlawing the wearing of shorts, ramping up protests, ultimately leading to the late postponement of Saturday’s Munster final.
Camogie is the female version of hurling, a ball sport played with wooden sticks, often likened to a mix between lacrosse and hockey, with a little rugby thrown in because of its physicality.
Wherever you go in the world, from Uganda to Vietnam, you are likely to find people playing Ireland’s national sports. Sweden is no different, and Irishwoman Michelle Cotter set up the hurling and camogie teams at Stockholm Gaels.
“The goal was to do something over here to show the players back home that their impact is reaching much further than the island of Ireland,” Cotter told Reuters.
The Camogie Association of Ireland’s rules state that playing gear must include skirt, skort or divided skirt, but a recent survey showed that 83 percent of players want the choice to include shorts.
The Stockholm club, which includes not only Irish players and local Swedes but women from Australia, Austria, the US, Britain, France and Spain, took things back to even before the days of skorts, when players wore skirts down to their ankles.
The first set of camogie rules, drawn up in 1903, stated skirts should be worn no more than six inches from the ground and, while things have improved, two motions to introduce shorts were defeated at last year’s Camogie Association congress.
“Given none of us even own skorts, we togged out for training in skirts and dresses,” Cotter, who also coaches and plays on the team, said. “It felt every bit as ridiculous as it looked.”
There is still hope for change following all the media attention and controversy of the past week, after the association agreed to hold a special congress on May 22 to vote again on a motion to allow the wearing of shorts.
