Hannah Tyrrell crowns brilliant year when comeback finally paid off

For a while Hannah Tyrrell’s decision to end her rugby career and join up with the Dublin footballers looked like it would not have a happy ending. After recording a four-in-a-row in 2020, the team looked certain to add further titles but defeats by Meath in the 2021 All-Ireland final and a year later by Donegal in the quarter-finals meant that Tyrrell’s switch had been frustrated in its first two years.

It all came together last August when a new look team won the first Dublin-Kerry women’s final with Tyrrell shooting the lights out with 0-8 from nine shots, including four frees, for three of which she was fouled in a dominant first half from which Kerry never recovered.

The display crowned a season for which she has been named the Gaelic Writers Association Personality of the Year in association with EirGrid.

This and other Personality of the Year awards for men’s football, hurling and camogie will be presented at a GWA function in on Friday evening.

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This year, Dublin lost a great deal of experience between players travelling, retiring, taking sabbaticals and getting injured. A further season of transition looked on the cards, as manager Mick Bohan introduced a number of young players, 16 newcomers in the league.

“Yeah,” says Tyrrell, “a lot of those girls who came in this year – we had two new corner backs starting that All-Ireland Final who had just turned 19 [Niamh Crowley and Niamh Donlon] and they have huge Dublin careers ahead of them. A lot of these young girls got a taste for winning and that sticks.”

Given the losses the team had sustained at the start of the season, it wasn’t too surprising that the league wasn’t a success with defeats by Kerry, who would also win the teams’ group match in the championship and Galway.

Somehow, Dublin found form in the knockout stages of the All-Ireland, culminating in a fine performance in the final, a feat of timing that Tyrrell says made the victory especially memorable.

“Yeah, definitely extra-special from the point of view that at the start of the season, we weren’t really in great shape, to be honest. We had a lot of newcomers coming in and we lost a lot of experience. As we went through the League we maybe thought we wouldn’t achieve what we wanted to. We still wanted to win the All-Ireland but we didn’t really maybe think it was possible this year.

“So, definitely, as things started to really kick throughout the summer and then when we put in that performance against Kerry in the final, it was hugely satisfying, very sweet. Kerry were obviously favourites coming in and were obviously the form team. In fairness to them, they had been phenomenal all year. But, for us, the satisfying bit was more that we changed our own narrative. We didn’t believe too much at the start but we put the hard work in and never gave up and we succeeded in the end.”

It completed an extraordinary career sweep, from underage All-Irelands to a 2011 FAI medal in soccer and a 6 Nations rugby win in 2015.

At the moment she hasn’t decided whether or not to return to Dublin colours next year. One consideration is Aoife, her and wife Sorcha Turnbull’s daughter, who made a first Croke Park appearance at seven weeks after the final whistle in August.

“I’m going to give it a few more months, spend time with the family. Logistically with a young baby at home, I need to see if I can make it work. That remains to be seen. The girls know that if I do come back I’m giving 100 per cent and I’m there for the team and hopefully we go on and do the business.”