Maeve Gilroy was an Antrim camogie legend of the 1950s and 60s.
She was a force of nature on and off the field. Anyone who met her never forgot her and she is widely acknowledged as one of the very best players of her era.
Maeve starred for St Dominic’s school, her club St Malachy’s and the Queen’s University and Combined University teams.
However, her inter-county career was a truly stellar one.
In 1956 she won her first All-Ireland medal when Antrim beat Cork in the final.
In the semi-final Maeve had given the best display of her career in helping to bring an end to the Dublin dream of 10-in-a-row.
It would be 11 years before she and Antrim would win their second All-Ireland medal.
During these years Maeve worked tirelessly for camogie at college, club and at county level, combining playing, refereeing and coaching.
She was chosen to referee the All-Ireland senior finals in 1961 and 1962.
Antrim again won the All-Ireland final in 1967 and Maeve also captained the Ulster team to their first ever interprovincial title that year.
Around that time Maeve had started to play golf at Balmoral. Very quickly she was playing off a single-figure handicap, competing on Balmoral teams and eventually serving as club captain.
Despite all the honours and plaudits she received during her GAA career, she was always ready to assist and welcome new players.
Towards the end of her playing days, Cork camogie board invited her to organise a coaching scheme to help revitalise the sport in the county, a signal honour for an Antrim player.
As the 1960s drew to a close, Maeve decided the time had come to retire from the game that she loved so much, that she had given so much to and which had furnished her with so many wonderful memories and friendships.
Away from sport, Maeve had a busy professional life – as registrar of St Joseph’s teacher training college in Belfast, she had a central role in seeing that college affairs always ran smoothly.
There she met a young aspiring poet, Seamus Heaney, who asked her to type up some of his earliest poems, valuable manuscripts which later – to her great satisfaction – funded a splendid set of golf clubs.
Outside of work, Maeve and her St Malachy’s club friends convened a famous poker school that continued for over 60 years and became the subject of a BBC radio documentary.
She was devoted to her nephews and nieces, who all share memories of days out to Lady Dixon Park, Carrickfergus and to Aldergrove to see the planes.
Her visits were often accompanied by deliveries of her delicious home-made fudge.
Christmases were lit up by her stories, good whiskey, and the banishing of nonsense and self-importance in the puffed-up and the pompous.
To the very end, she would arch an eyebrow at a surprising result in the football, and always raised a smile on hearing of the latest sporting success of a Gilroy or Curran.
She has left behind her a great wealth of stories, and instilled in her family and friends a love of sporting competition, good company, and the lesson that life is to be lived with full vigour.
She will be greatly missed.
The Gilroy and Curran families