MILLIE Condon had a simple dream.

She didn’t necessarily envisage lifting the O’Duffy Cup in Croke Park, starting in the biggest game of the year or scoring a goal in an All-Ireland semi-final.

The Ballinascarthy woman just wanted to walk in one of the pre-match parades.

‘I've always said, because I've never been able to do it, all I wanted to do was go in one of the parades,’ she says.

‘I just wanted to be able to walk around the pitch behind the marching band.

‘That could be up in Mallow, for all I minded, before a football match,’ she laughs.

Instead, her first pre-match parade was around Croke Park on All-Ireland senior camogie final day in front of a record crowd of 33,419, ahead of a glorious Cork triumph over Galway.

It was a sign of just how far Condon has come.

In 2024, her first season on the county senior panel, Condon was part of the victorious Cork squad. The new kid on the block, it was her introduction to life in the fast lane. Everything was new.

Now in her third season, the West Cork trailblazer is swimming comfortably in the deep end.

Condon started every game for the Cork seniors this season – five in the league, one in the Munster championship, and five in the All-Ireland series.

She played almost every minute of the All-Ireland series, apart from being subbed for the returning Ciara O’Sullivan after 58 minutes in the Group 1 opener away to Galway in early June.

Millie Condon and Ava Fitzgerald lift the O'Duffy Cup. (Photo: James Crombie/INPHO)

This was the season Condon announced her arrival on the big stage. 

With a huge turnover in the squad after many established stars exited stage left for various reasons, this year was a chance for youth to turn an opportunity into something more serious and long-lasting.

Condon grabbed her chance, grew throughout the season, and so too did the trust in the Bal dynamo.

‘Your confidence does grow with every game,’ she says.

‘Even playing Galway in the league earlier in the year, I was still a newbie on the starting 15, still trying to find my role.

‘That was a big thing earlier in the season – because we had a lot of change, it meant there were new people coming in, but it takes time to find your feet.

‘The seniors play a certain way so you’re trying to get that to become second nature to you.

‘If I think back to the league, and if I was told I’d be marking Carrie Dolan, I’d have been so nervous for days. But months later, getting told to mark Niamh McPeake in the All-Ireland final, I was like, “Okay, grand, whatever.”

Condon’s confidence elevated her from rookie to starter. Her potential is undeniable – in 2022 she won All-Ireland minor titles with Cork in camogie and football, and an All-Ireland schools crown with Sacred Heart Clonakilty. It’s been upwards ever since. And she was impressing seasoned stalwarts such as four-time All-Star Saoirse McCarthy.

‘I’ve said this since I’d say Millie was 18 or 19 when she was first playing with MTU – I was like, “She is brilliant”,’ McCarthy told this paper ahead of the All-Ireland final.

‘You see how she gets around the field, she’s so fast, and she just brings something different to our team. She’s just a ball of energy going around the field. The way she goes about it with a smile on her face, it just brings energy to everyone else.’

Condon is part of a young group that has injected new life into the senior set-up. The impact of Cork’s All-Ireland U23 final triumph against Kilkenny in May has been referenced as a turning point in this season of two halves. The sluggish start, when the league and Munster championship didn’t go to plan, gave way to a surge in the All-Ireland series, momentum building with every game.

The U23 gang – including Condon, Orlaith Cahalane, Méabh Murphy and Ava McAuliffe – brought their All-Ireland-winning energy back into the senior set-up. A game-changer.

‘The U23 girls are unbelievable and probably all they needed was just a bit of confidence. When they won then, they came back in and they brought a lot of energy,’ Sorcha McCarthan explained after the All-Ireland senior final.

‘We fed into it then. You look at the likes of Ava (McAuliffe), Millie (Condon), all they needed was a bit of confidence and backing themselves. It played a huge part in our win against Galway.’

Matches against 2025 champions Galway were important markers this season, especially in the All-Ireland series.

The Rebels’ 1-18 to 0-8 win away to the Tribeswomen in the Group 1 opener on June 6th was the reminder that Cork, despite the early-season struggles, were still a force.

‘I had a good feeling about that game,’ Condon reflects.

‘We proved to ourselves that we can perform. We hadn’t played like that all year. Things just clicked.

‘I think moving Laura Hayes into midfield made a massive difference, because she just does a massive block of work, so you can kind of feed off her energy.

‘It’s hard to explain, but you could feel the difference that day.’

The Rebels’ resurgence was underway.

Cork topped Group 1 with a 100 percent record, beating Galway, Tipperary and Waterford. It was Tipp again in the All-Ireland semi-final – a game where Condon dislocated her finger, had it popped back in, and went on to score a goal. 

‘I wouldn’t exactly be much of a shooter on the panel, you can ask anyone on the team!’ Condon laughs.

‘I remember James Nyan, one of our coaches, saying at the start of the year, “Millie, on the ninth of August, you’re going to score a point up in Croke Park.” Okay, that didn’t happen. But he could see it from the start that there was an opportunity for everyone there.

‘But scoring a goal, I actually don’t even know what happened, to be honest, because I’ve never practised scoring goals, which is fairly obvious from the way it was taken! 

‘The space opened up, I had to go for it and thank God it went in.’

Cork's Millie Condon scores her side's second goal against Tipperary in the All-Ireland semi-final. (Photo: Bryan Keane/INPHO)

Earlier in the clash in Thurles, Condon had dislocated the ring finger on her right hand. She didn’t flinch. Last year in the league she dislocated a baby finger. She knows the drill.

‘It’s just the case of popping it back in again, and it’s fine,’ she explains, unfazed by it all. 

Weeks later, in the noise and heat of Croke Park on All-Ireland final day, she felt calm.

‘I was definitely more nervous for the semi-final than I was for the final, and I don’t know why,’ she says. 

‘I felt there was a weird calmness in Croke Park. The dressing room beforehand was probably the calmest it’s ever been. People were just doing their own thing.

‘I actually was just really looking forward to the game.’

The Cork No. 12 was as industrious as ever on the big stage as the Rebels dethroned Galway, scaling the summit after a 2-14 to 0-19 victory. Champions, again. Condon’s second All-Ireland medal after 2024, but this one feels sweeter given her impact. She had to wait for her chance, but the previous two seasons gave her the platform to build on. 

She lifted the O’Duffy Cup with Ava Fitzgerald, another special memory banked.

‘I sat next to Ava every match on the bus. I’d sit next to Ava the whole time. So, we just said beforehand, “Look, if it happens to go our way, will we lift the cup together?” And both of us wanted to.’

Then the celebrations began, and continued all the way to Albufeira where Condon and eight team-mates enjoyed four nights in Portugal, a chance to unwind before the club season took over.

The dual star flew back into Cork on a Sunday morning, and later that day played for Clonakilty footballers in the county championship senior opener against Kinsale. 

Two days later, she was lining out for Ballinascarthy in the premier intermediate county championship. Busy times, but the MTU Cork student – on placement in Eli Lilly in Kinsale – takes it all in her stride, having moved to the next level after her breakthrough campaign with Cork.

‘It was a special season. We grew closer together because we were the only ones going through the seven-week training block in between the league and in between the championship,’ she says.

‘On those rainy nights on a muddy pitch, you wouldn’t want to go there if you didn’t enjoy doing it. But it’s the people you have with you. Everyone there, every single person on the panel, I would call them one of my good friends, because they made it all so much better and so much more enjoyable.’