What a thing to wake up to of a bank holiday Monday morning, to hear Marty Morrissey describe what a skort is to his rapt audience.
A skort, for the as-yet uninitiated, is a chimera piece of clothing reserved almost exclusively to small girls, and adult hockey and camogie players.
It consists of a small pair of shorts (the functional bit of the attire), with a small redundant bit of fabric at the front, to give the nominal illusion of a skirt.
It’s a piece of clothing so chaotic in structure and purpose that its very name is a mess.
The skort is the mandated outfit for camogie players, one which they do not want.
Over the weekend, the players of Kilkenny and Dublin made a joint and united stance, appearing for the Leinster semi-final uniformly, in shorts.
The 30 players were unanimously booked by the ref with threats that the game would be called off otherwise.
It went ahead in the end, after the 30 independent, adult, intercounty players, were ordered back to the changing room to change into their skorts.
Incidentally, Kilkenny won 4-11 to 2-12.
The potted recent history is this: in April 2024, the camogie congress voted against introducing shorts as an option by 55 to 45.
A motion to abandon the skort completely was even more heavily defeated: 64 to 36.
Shorts on camogie players, presumably, being an affront to Irish nationalism and culture that the game simply couldn’t cope with.
49% of those in the Gaelic Player’s Association survey cited anxiety of period leaks during a match.
Do those 64 have any knowledge of a menstural cycle, and everything that goes with it? What do they think happens; a period can be turned on and off at will?
Do the maths; there are 30 women on a pitch, at least.
Roughly half will have to think strategically about their underwear on the morning of a match because of this very normal part of life.
Not only this, they have to factor in the skort too.
The argument has been made that if matches need to be abandoned, so be it, but that’s not just.
We already have the disgusting and dismissive treatment of dual players, women again, who have matches scheduled on the same day or weekend every year.
Now, to prove a point, they are expected to abandon matches and have TDs weigh in on their behalf, all to wear a pair of shorts. It doesn’t need to come to this.
Who’s delicate sensibilities are being protected by the little swatch of fabric, and what ladylike qualities are being preserved by this bit of polyester, amidst the mud and sweat and sportsmanlike injuries? (Incidentally, one popular website describes the item of sportswear as a ‘flattering fit’. Good grief).
It’s hard to say what the end goal of the skort is, and it doesn’t matter.
The players have spoken, and they don’t want the bloody things, but nevertheless 64 people voted in favour of the skort and this, the Camogie Association claim, is democracy in action.
What a wild subversion and deliberate misrepresentation of what a democratic process is, and how mortifying for an organisation to be so pig-headed.
As long as the state had been in existence, women have been humiliated and belittled.
The silliest thing has to be a battled in the public arena; the right to work and have children, the right to keep your job and be married to a divorced man.
The right to wear a pair of shorts when representing your county; all these are representative examples of being patronised and undermined and show a continuous mistrust of women.
The Camogie Association will fold, you can bet on that, but this insane ‘row’ has to be had first.
Some good may come of this.
Perhaps organisations in Ireland could quietly assess what archaic and weird impositions they have, and equally, quietly, and with maturity dispose of them before they too are made a public show of. No one wants this.
