by Daragh Ó Conchúir
Star, star, teach me how to shine, shine
Teach me so I know what’s going on in your mind.
‘Cause I don’t understand these people
Who sayin’ the hill’s too steep.
Well, they talk and talk forever
But they just never climb.
- The Frames
It is totally in keeping with AnnMarie Starr’s way that she slipped quietly in the back door after a two-year absence from the Galway squad caused by getting married and having a baby girl, while the spotlight focused firmly on the return of Niamh Kilkenny to the fold after the former player of the year had missed last season to give birth to her son.
Starr’s wedding to Seán Hardiman took place a fortnight after she added a third Glen Dimplex All-Ireland senior camogie medal in 2021 to the club memento garnered ten years previously with Killimor. Lottie was born in June of the following year, a month after her mother turned 30.
It was something of a throwback to see the duo lining out at midfield together last March, as they had done so often over the years. Kilkenny (who also starts in today’s Glen Dimplex All-Ireland senior final against champions Cork, aged 35) was introduced in the closing minutes of the 0-14 to 0-9 Very League triumph over the Rebels.
It is 15 years now since Starr was first involved with Galway, a youngster gaining experience at in-house games before making the panel properly in 2010 and getting game time in 2011. She has known the highs and lows, losing All-Irelands in those first two seasons as well as in 2015 and 2020.
She came on as a sub in the three successes of 2013, 2019 and 2021 and has overcome many obstacles to be here, readying for an eighth final.
Not that having a child should be an obstacle and thankfully, there are many top-tier female athletes in Ireland and around the world that have returned to ply their trade at the highest level after giving birth. Like any other part of a sportsperson’s life, it’s about the support structures.
“I had a little girl, Lottie,” Starr details. “She was two in June. She’s out and about at the matches now. Seán is great, bringing her here, there and everywhere but she loves the days out. Not so much training. She’d be a bit too wild!
“You need serious support. Seán is brilliant, and our family is brilliant. I wouldn’t be able to do it without them. You’re gone so many evenings a week. Luckily for us, she prefers bedtime with Daddy than Mammy!
“The management have been brilliant too. I haven’t had to miss anything but I know there would be no problem if I did.”
Most people outside the county thought she had fallen out of favour, and that her career was over. That is partly due to her shy manner and preference for understatement, which is reflective of her Spartan team ethic.
Part of it too though was that it had been a while since she had been inked into the first 15. And while Starr always understood the importance of the collective over the individual and fulfilled the squad role to the best of her ability, it never sat right with her. Not completely.
She finds it hard to put words on the ethereal sort of feeling that drew her back. More than once, as she is asked to do so, she pauses, looks up as if seeking some divine inspiration. She sighs, tuts, a bit frustrated with herself. Or maybe with the line of questioning.
But some things are beyond language. How to explain the mystical pull, the yearning?
She tries.
“I didn’t… I didn’t feel like I was finished. I was… it was… how do I say it? It was an itch. I wanted to get back. And I enjoy it. And I wanted to do something for myself as well. It’s a big change in your life, having a little girl.”
You wonder if not having been in the team those last few seasons didn’t feel like a right way to sign off?
“I suppose so, yeah. And like, when I was thinking about it as well, I was like, I’d been involved a lot of years, 2010 to 2024 – take out the two years and that’s 12 years playing camogie with Galway – I just didn’t feel like I ever…”
It won’t come. It’s not about giving her maximum, because she always did that.
“… I still felt I had something to give to the team. And if I wasn’t starting, fair enough. If I didn’t get to that level, fair enough but I thought that if I gave it everything, I could get there.”
The point is proven – to herself and everyone else – regardless of what unfolds today. It said something, of course, that Cathal Murray reached out to her last October. She returned to training in December, one-on-one with Galway Camogie’s full-time S&C coach, Robbie Lane.
“At the start, there was a bit of guilt leaving in the evenings. It felt like a big deal. But in fairness to Robbie, I had every faith that he was going to get me in there. So within a couple of months, I felt back to myself, Then, it was just a case of getting match fitness. But I knew coming in that if I just put the head down and done what Robbie told me to do, I was going to get there.
“The panel is very different from when I left it, a lot of younger girls, and it was nice to get to know them. I enjoyed that.
“One of the girls was asking me and Niamh our age. We were trying not to let on. We just said, ‘Put it this way, you have another 12 to 15 years with Galway camogie! The years fly by.”
The fairytale threatened to take a dark turn in the group game against Cork. It had already been a tough day, with Ger Manley’s crew racing to a 12-point win but in the game’s final throes, Starr went over on her ankle and screamed with pain.
“I got injured in the last minute of the game. I wasn’t sure from the amount of pain that I had in it at the time, until I got a scan. And then the scan was good news. So we worked on what I had to do to get back. There were some tears in my ankle, but they were very mild, compared to what we thought it was going to be so I was delighted.”
This is a player that returned to contact training a week before Galway’s All-Ireland final defeat to the Rebels in 2015, after suffering a broken arm two months previously that the team doctor described as the worst he had ever seen on the pitch.
Her description of events in an interview with this writer the following year is memorable, as she looked at her dangling arm with a piece of bone piercing the skin following a collision with teammate Jessie Gill against Offaly.
“I’ll never forget it,” said Starr, smiling at the memory. “I don’t think Molly (Dunne) will either. She came walking over and all I could hear was her going, ‘OH MY GOD’”
That and everything in this brilliant career speaks for the 33-year-old. It hasn’t always been a bed of roses but beneath the reserve that might be mistaken for vulnerability, is a steely coat of armour.
When she says, “We’re ready,” you can take that to the bank.
