Win or lose.. Fun must be goal to get girls playing

FIANNA Fail TD Peter 'Chap' Cleere is a father of four girls and a camogie coach.

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Here, he says sport must be as much about fun as it is about competition if we're to encourage female participation in games.

"SPORT teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose, it teaches you about life" - words of wisdom from the great Billie Jean King.

Ahead of the 2025 camogie season, this rings true.

Sport offers numerous benefits that extend far beyond the track, pool or playing field. It promotes health and well-being and fosters strong social connections and life-long friendship. But the benefits are not equally spread.

The National Sports Policy 2018-2027 acknowledges that while almost 90% of children in the later years of primary school regularly participate in organised sport, these numbers drop when the children move to secondary school, and that drop-off is more pronounced among girls.

Teenage girls drop out of sport for a multitude of reasons.

Lack of confidence, negative body image, inconvenient uniforms, academic pressures (there is a sharp fall in participation during exam years) and little-to-no media coverage of women's sport have been cited in numerous studies.