Ciara Moore, left, and Angela Mohan, right, of the Mairead Farrells Senior Ladies Football Club--preparing to defend their championship status.
To borrow from an old ‘60s song, if you’re going to San Francisco, you should start fundraising now. And that’s what the Mairead Farrell Ladies Gaelic Football Club is doing.
Last Sunday, 43 golfers ponied up $100 each—and more than 100 businesses and individuals kicked in donations—for a golf outing at the Edgmont Country Club, a bucolic private 18-hole club in Newtown Square. The money they contributed will help send the Mairead Farrells, the reigning national ladies champs, to the west coast this summer to defend the senior ladies title.
“This is the biggest fundraiser of the year for us,” said Angela Mohan, coach and manager of the team that she helped found in 2008 with players Siobhan Trainor and Orla Treacy. She estimated that it raised about $10,000, putting them about halfway to their target.
Last year, the Mairead Farrells tore up the fields at Cardinal Dougherty High School to earn a spot in the national championship, held at Gaelic Park in Chicago. They’ll be defending their title in San Francisco in August.
Unfortunately, their main opponent—the second ladies team from Philadelphia, the Notre Dames–is taking a breather this year. The Notre Dames are also national champs—they brought back the 2010 junior ladies title from Chicago. So the Mairead Farrells will be traveling to New York, Washington, and Boston to play teams there. It’s rumored that the home games in Philly will remain on the Cardinal Dougherty fields for the time being. The archdiocese closed the high school, but still hasn’t sold it. And the Philadelphia Gaelic Athletic Association fields in Limerick haven’t been completed.
Mohan says they need two more fundraisers—a beef-and-beer night and a raffle—to get the team on the plane to San Francisco. And, she says, “the lassies are coming in”—Irish players who spend the summer in the US, playing Gaelic football in the hot summer sun.
Check out our photos of the golf outing.
