‘It’s hard, but you have to keep battling’: Integration fight takes toll on Cora Staunton

For Cora Staunton, the battle for integration has been ongoing for well over two decades.

Mary McAleese’s resignation in September as chair of the Steering Group on Integration moved the conversation out of the sporting sphere and brought national attention to the issue.

But Staunton has been in the trenches on this topic for as long as she cares to remember. She experienced it as a player on the field and now she sees it from the sideline coaching underage teams with her club, Carnacon.

“I’ve been fighting for better things for females since back in the early 2000s. We’re 26 years on now, things have changed, they’ve gotten better, but it has been slow change. My fear is that it will continue to be that slow,” she says.

Staunton made her Mayo senior debut in 1995 at the age of just 13 and went on to become one of the greatest female players in the history of the game, winning four All-Ireland titles with Mayo, six All-Ireland club crowns with Carnacon and 11 All Stars.

“I would have been really disappointed when Mary McAleese stepped away,” she adds. “I see it in my own club, we’re not a one-club [model]. There are issues. My own nieces, they’re asking me, ‘Why aren’t our finals on in MacHale Park?’. You’re trying to explain something to young girls at 10, 11, 12 years of age and they just don’t get it.

“I’m coaching three teams in the club and you are always trying to get pitches. It’s different in every area but in some clubs you do have brothers and sisters playing for the same club, but the boys are getting different treatment. That kind of thing is disappointing.

“I just hope that the integration timeline doesn’t get pushed out too much further and it happens in the next two years. We cannot push it out to 2030 and beyond because then it’s another generation of players playing the game that have now lost that opportunity.”

Ballintubber are the local GAA club linked with Carnacon and as is the case across the country, there is always a desire for more facilities and better training slots.

“It’s hard, but you just have to keep battling, that’s the only thing. People say, ‘Do you not get fed up battling?’ But sure you have to because if you don’t, it’s not going to be on the agenda.

“I just think it’s really important that young girls get the same opportunities as their siblings. They shouldn’t be treated any differently. They’re training as hard. You go to an under-14 club session for boys. And I’m taking an under-14 girls’ team, they are training every bit as hard, if not harder, than the boys.

“And I see it because I’m around the county at matches. Some of the pitches that you go to play matches, the facilities are just shocking because it might be just the school pitch they have to go to because their men’s club won’t allow them to use a pitch.

“Some people think integration is only about intercounty level and about what happens at the elite level. It’s not; it’s the players on the ground. It’s about young girls playing football.

“There are times you do get fed up battling, you really do, you lose energy and you’re just like, ‘What’s the point in fighting?’. But if you don’t fight then the opportunity isn’t there for the next generation of girls coming up. So, someone has to be there. There are a few of us in Carnacon who are certainly fighting all the time.”

Staunton has just completed a stint coaching the Ballina Stephenites senior men’s footballers, helping guide the club to three Mayo titles on the bounce.

She was a trailblazer, too, in creating a pathway for female Irish players to play professionally in Australia when in 2017 she became the first woman from Ireland to be recruited by an Aussie rules club. Staunton’s ability to excel with the oval ball kicked open the door for more to follow.

However, with many of the best female players moving Down Under, it has had an adverse impact on the women’s game in Ireland.

“I suppose the elephant in the room would be AFLW, it’s probably hindering us a little bit at the moment,” says Staunton.

“I’m in a very difficult position because I’ve seen the benefits of going to Australia and getting the opportunity to play professional sport. The [women’s] game is obviously suffering because of that. You can’t say anything less when you have, I think, around 46 players out there.

“But you can’t stop girls from now playing professional sport, because it’s a huge opportunity.”

Kobe McDonald is grasping such an opportunity and after a fairytale season in the green and red, the Mayo teenager is now about to pursue an Aussie rules career. Staunton believes the Sam Maguire winner will be a success Down Under.

“I just imagine he’s going to take it by storm. It will be really exciting for him but there will be challenges – it will probably be the first time in his life he won’t make the starting team straight away.

“From the age of five or six, I’d say he was probably the best player on every team he played with and has never had to sit on the sideline, so that will be a challenge. But I think he’s going to be a superstar there and he’s going to be a huge loss to that Mayo forward line.”

– Cora Staunton will be inducted into the Gaelic Writers’ Association Ladies Football Hall of Fame at the 2026 GWA Awards, sponsored by Clayton Hotels, on Friday night.