Life & Style

‘We need to show girls there’s always a place for them throughout their life in sport’

Why do so many girls drop out of sport at a young age and how the situation can be improved?

Maeve O’Connell: 'The period itself is such an issue.' Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

Laoise Molumby
Sun Sep 17 2023 - 05:00

A special Teenage Edition of the Magazine this weekend features articles written by aspiring young journalists on issues that matter to them, from the impact of TikTok on their lives, to accessibility, sustainable fashion, making music, and keeping young women playing sport.

“If you wanted to know why girls drop out of sport, put up four pictures of the [Irish] women playing in the [soccer] World Cup,” says Aled Hughes, a movement and brain therapist, and director of coaching at Mount Merrion Athletics Club in Dublin.

“Then put a picture of Johnny Sexton, Roy Keane, the McDonald’s sign and Jesus on the cross on your phone. Ask ‘who’s this?’ I bet you they’ll go Johnny Sexton, they’ll do Roy Keane, they’ll do the McDonald’s sign, they’ll do Jesus on the cross and they won’t know any of the women.”

For Hughes, that is the leading issue for young women quitting sport today: lack of role models.

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According to a 2021 Sport Ireland report, by the age of about 13-15, many girls have labelled themselves “not sporty”. Only 12 per cent of teenage girls aged 12-13 get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day. For 16- to 20-year-olds, this drops to a mere 5 per cent.

I am meeting Hughes at Deerpark, in Mount Merrion in Dublin, shortly after Ireland got knocked out of the soccer World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. We’re watching the Sunday morning Junior Park Run that takes place every week at this time. A group of children of all different ages, sizes and abilities are about to run around the park’s two-kilometre perimeter.

This is where it all starts, he says, and commends the community spirit and participation.

“The problem is if you tagged all these kids, and they go to secondary school, you know that 50 per cent of them won’t be doing sport. Who are their role models at the moment? Their parents. When they get to secondary school, they stop listening to their parents. Then they need high-achieving role models.”

Aled Hughes: 'Girls need high-achieving role models.' Photograph: Laura Hutton

As Hughes is speaking, the clock starts in Deerpark. Immediately a young boy sprints ahead. I expect him to run out of steam and fall behind, but he only widens the gap and grows smaller in the distance. There’s always one.

A decade ago that one would have been Zoie Richie. Now aged 17, Richie has been running competitively for almost 10 years. Her desire to win and her dream of competing at a high level keeps her motivated. But throughout the years, she tells me, her group in Rathfarnham Athletics Club has got smaller and smaller. This is because at about age 15, there comes a point where you have to make a decision, she says. For her, you either dedicate yourself to running for Ireland and competing at an international level, or you quit entirely.

“There’s no middle level,” she says. “A lot of people don’t like the pressure of competing. It’s very nerve-racking. If you don’t like that, you don’t really have another choice. There needs to be a happy medium where people can look to.”

People might not like sports but that’s a very big generalisation. There is something for everyone, but you just have to find it

—  Zoie Richie

Richie has also noticed the numbers dwindling in both her school hockey and basketball teams. The reason for this drop, Richie guesses, is down to people liking the sport but not loving it. It is no longer seen as a priority as people grow older and time becomes more limited.

“Most schools offer two sports and that’s it and that’s not going to necessarily suit everyone,” she says. “People might not like sports but that’s a very big generalisation. There is something for everyone, but you just have to find it.”

In Irish schools, there are seven strands of PE including dance, gymnastics, aquatics, athletics, invasion games, net games, and strike and field games. So, according to Eimear Kelly, a lecturer in sport pedagogy and coaching science at Munster Technological University, who studied PE and Irish at the University of Limerick, there is no excuse for schools to only be doing two invasion games, such as soccer or rugby.

Eimear Kelly: 'We need to show girls that there is a future for them and there’s always a place for them throughout their life in sport.' Photograph: Don Moloney

“We all know that come exam time, halls are gone,” she says. “Come the school musical, halls are gone. Some could have never been back since Covid, you just don’t know. PE is always the one that gets the hit.”

She highlights what she views as the big problem with many schools’ approach to PE by asking: Imagine if you were a maths teacher and for six years you only taught algebra. Although you would progress the students’ level of algebra throughout the years, you would still be missing vital details of the course. The students would then go and sit their Leaving Cert maths exam that had everything in the book, and the only thing that they would be able to answer would be algebra.

How can teenage girls decide that they are not sporty, if they are not given the full picture?

The period itself is such an issue. And say if you feel sick, we’re not taught well enough how to exercise during those days

—  Maeve O’Connell

Kelly is working on her PhD, researching the impact of sporting role models on physical activity and sport participation among teenage girls. During the summer, she ran focus groups with under-14 camogie and football players. This included looking at club participation and individual practice time with their sport at home. The plan is to monitor dropout rates of girls who were exposed to more sporting role models versus those who were not, with the hope of replicating the model with other sports in the future.

“We need to show girls that there is a future for them and there’s always a place for them throughout their life in sport whether that’s at a local level, on to your county or on to your nation,” she says. “The more the media show it, the more we re-create these images and start breaking down societal barriers.”

Puberty and a lack of education surrounding how girls should handle it while training, is another reason why so many quit, according to Maeve O’Connell, a footballer with St Patrick’s CYFC in Irishtown in Dublin 4. This includes even simple things such as not knowing what to wear while training, she says.

Maeve O’Connell, footballer with Irishtown, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

“The period itself is such an issue,” she says. “And say if you feel sick, we’re not taught well enough how to exercise during those days, or if you need to pull back because you feel tired and not because you’re unfit or whatever, that’s not taught at all.”

Although there was always a huge sport element in her school in Galway, it was always more focused on the boys’ teams. The one shoutout O’Connell received over the school intercom, she remembers in vivid detail: The classroom she was in. How she immediately went bright red. She had already played matches for Galway and Connacht, but this was the first time she was ever recognised in a school environment. A couple of her classmates even approached her to say, “Well done, that’s unbelievable. Didn’t know you did that.” It made her feel so proud.

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She says it is as much about women supporting other women, as it is about men supporting women. When you ask, “Are you watching the All-Ireland?” you are not wondering if it’s girls or boys playing, says O’Connell. You are assuming it is the lads and that it is football or hurling. She says that was something she had to work on, actively going out and watching the girls, putting it on the television because it was as good a game. Women’s sport wasn’t pushed in every household like it was for the lads.

“Unfortunately, it’s something you have to do consciously. It’s making the decision. If you want the recognition, you have to give it to the other girls as well.”

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This weekend, for the first time, the content of The Irish Times Magazine will be written entirely by teenagers. The six volunteers tackle subjects including the pitfalls of Tiktok, why many young women drop out of sport and what it is like to be a wheelchair user. One of their mentors for the project was Patrick Freyne, who recorded a conversation with them about the way their generation consumes news and the issues they really care about.

A year ago, she joined her club in Irishtown and describes the community between the sexes as fantastic. For the young girls playing in Irishtown, Irish footballer and Ringsend local Abbie Larkin is their biggest role model. Being able to watch her play in the World Cup encouraged the girls to start believing that maybe they can be on the television too some day, she says.

History was also made at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, when the Irish heavyweight women’s boat of four rowed across the finish line, securing a bronze medal. They were the first Irish heavyweight women to make it to an Olympic final, and the first Irish women to stand on the podium for rowing. One of the four included Eimear Lambe, who would not have been standing there if she had stuck with a decision she had made years prior.

Aifric Keogh and Eimear Lambe celebrate after winning bronze at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho

Lambe was competitive growing up, rowing for Ireland competing in the European Championships two years in a row. The first time she stepped back from rowing was in sixth year, to focus on her Leaving Cert. In hindsight. she says, “There wasn’t much of a need. I think it’s so important to learn how to balance your studies and sports especially at a young age.” However, she knew this was a temporary break as she received the Ad Astra scholarship for rowing at University College Dublin, and knew she would be straight back in the water after exams.

The prospect of quitting arose again for Lambe, except this time she thought it was for good. Two years into college, although she had competed in the world university championships, she was having doubts. As an under-23 heavyweight female rower, she felt there was no space for her to make it to the world championships and began to lose interest. She decided to step back from the sport when she started to question: Was rowing something she had chosen to do, or something she had been put into as a child and just accepted as part of her routine?

Unless you see people doing it, the gap between where you are and where you want to be just seems so far

—  Eimear Lambe

Initially she was happy to get a break, but come the end of the year she missed the sport. That same year, Rowing Ireland sent a heavyweight women’s pair to the under 23-world championships. It was a breakthrough moment. Watching the pair race gave Lambe a newfound self-belief, that if they could do it maybe she could too.

“The power of representation is so underestimated,” she says. “I think even back to my own experience, unless you see people doing it, the gap between where you are and where you want to be just seems so far.” Her time away from rowing also made her realise that it wasn’t just something she had been doing all her life, but a passion she really enjoyed.

Back at Deerpark, Hughes highlights the importance of looking at sport as a part of daily life. It should be an element of your routine like school or friends, and it can be fun.

“I really think we underestimate the power of what girls can do,” he says.

They just need to see it can be done.

Laoise Molumby was mentored by Irish Times journalist Conor Capplis

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