AS a player, Maureen O’Higgins was driven to be the best she could be and make the most out of her career and she plans to carry those same qualities and determination into her new role as Down County Chairperson.
The Liatroim native became the Mourne County’s first ever female chairperson in mid-December, taking over the reins from the outgoing John Devaney who completed his five-year term, and she can’t wait to get up and running.
O’Higgins, who won All-Ireland titles at both club and county level, says she is honoured to take on the role having spent the past 14 years on the county executive, including the last five as vice-chairperson.
“It is a nice honour, and I suppose I have the experience behind me,” described O’Higgins.
“It’s a great honour for me and for my club and the GAA has always been my family and it’s always something I’ve been involved in.
“I was vice-chair, worked closely with my chairperson John Devaney and I got a good insight into the job and especially when I was chair of CCC, that involves all the fixture-making and everything else that goes with it.
“Before that I was on the Ulster Council and I was the first lady on Ulster Council committee as well and obviously I was the first lady in my own club, the first female chairperson in Liatroim.
“I’ve had many roles and I’ve been involved in playing for my club and coaching too. I was big into coaching with juvenile’s in the club. I coached at county minor level as well and then I became involved with the club committee.
“I was a very competitive person when playing camogie, and I played for my county at the highest level, I played in National League Division One and the Senior Championships, so you just want to play with the best.
“Our aim is just to build on the good work that has been done and strive to participate at the highest level. We are a proud county, and we want to be competing with the best, and to achieve this we need support and buy-in from our clubs, ensuring from the outset that our foundations are strong.”
Integration is a hot topic in GAA circles at the minute and it’s coming down the tracks sooner rather than later with the merge of the Camogie Association, the GAA and the LGFA bodies happening by 2027.
The Liatroim club are one of the shinning lights in how the one club model works and O’Higgins is backing integration at national level too.
“We have all the four codes, and we have been integrated for years, really from the outset,” she added.
“It’s down to the respect for the people involved, not only were they heavily involved in camogie, but they were heavily involved in the whole development of the club so from the outset we worked well together.
“I think the main thing was having respect for each other’s codes. It is a big task, and it’s all about having respect and understanding of each other’s codes. The main issue probably would be facilities and the lack of facilities and trying to make sure that everybody’s cared for.
“That has been an issue for a long time now. It’s trying to schedule everything, so everything fits in but there’s a big demand on for example, county grounds, especially if you’re sharing a county ground with a club team.
“Then you’re trying to cater for your own county, obviously the footballers, hurlers and then you have to try then and plan and fit in ladies football and camogie. So, the big problem is the lack of facilities.
“However, when we get our centre of participation, hopefully that will come to fruition in a few years, and we will be able to cater for the demands and the needs of all our codes. Integration is something that I have advocated for this long time.
“It’s all about sharing our resources, the expertise, and we all learn from each other. I have been a big driver of it under the One Club model, especially when I was County Development Officer, I would encourage clubs to go down the route of the One Club model.”
Down are competing well across the board at the minute. The football and hurling teams are both looking ahead to their respective Division Two campaigns, the ladies are the reigning Ulster Intermediate champions while Domhnall Nugent is the new county camogie manager.
Striving for that next level is a goal within Down’s grasp but to do so, there’s a lot of work that has to go on behind the scenes. One of the biggest jobs is the aforementioned project at Ballykinlar, the home of Down’s new Centre of Participation.
When completed, the facility will boast four full size GAA grass pitches (three with floodlights), a covered spectator seating area, indoor multiuse games area, a walking trail, a gym, a heritage museum, administrative blocks and community facilities.
Ballykinlar will become a place that Down GAA can call home. And it’s needed. “It’s so important for the development of our players,” O’Higgins explained.
“It’s so important that every week they have a place to train as opposed to, at the current moment, our county secretaries ringing clubs each week, seeing what facilities are available to cater for our county teams.
“It will be a home for our players and it’s going to be a centre of participation, so it’s going to be their home, their ground and that every week they know where they’re going, as opposed to not knowing exactly where you’re going from week to week,
“We have a project team set up and it all takes time. There’s a group of people heading that up, and there’s loads of expertise there, they’re very talented and they’re the ones that are driving it. There’s a lot of different stages have to be met before there’s even a sod cut.”