By Hayley Kilgallon

The first recorded game of ladies’ Gaelic football was played in St James’ Park, Dublin, in 1920. Players competed in ankle-length skirts, watched by a sizeable crowd. But the game was not authorised by the GAA, as it was branded ‘unsuitable for frail feminine fingers’. In the decades that followed, the sport was kept to the sidelines, a popular novelty act at local fairs and carnivals. Those who dared to play it risked banishment from the other female-only Gaelic game, camogie. The message was clear: Gaelic football was ‘unladylike’.

But, by the time of the first ladies’ Gaelic football final in 1973, the Evening Press was reporting, ‘there is a future for this latest craze in the Irish sporting world’. And when, a year later, the Ladies’ Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) was founded in Hayes’ Hotel in Thurles, County Tipperary in July 1974, the future for this new craze was set in motion.

From its carnival origins to live broadcasts on All-Ireland final weekend, from writing the rule book to a membership of nearly 200,000, from the earliest All-Stars to the first CEO, this definitive history of the LGFA captures the extraordinary growth of a national sport, one that has exceeded all expectations, to enter the mainstream and travel the world. Lavishly illustrated and drawing from national, club and personal archives, Fifty Years of the LGFA is a record to be treasured by players and supporters alike, and shows the best is yet to come.