IT was an amazing year for Dohenys LGFA. Years of hurt after coming up short at junior B level were replaced by a 2019 junior B county title. Three junior A county final defeats in four years were erased by this season’s victory over Bantry Blues in the county decider, before bowing out of Munster at the semi-finals stage. Intermediate football beckons in 2026 but, before all that, Aprille, Michelle and Cork inter-county star Melissa Duggan looked back to where it all began.

GER McCARTHY (GMC): Let’s go back to your childhoods. Melissa, what’s your earliest memory of playing football with your sisters?

MELISSA: We used to call them Super Sundays. Straight after dinner on a Sunday, we’d all run out into the garden and play football for hours and hours. We’d be climbing trees and everything because our kicks could have gone anywhere back then! Our goalposts were between two of the windows.

APRILLE: Melissa was definitely the most competitive! Yes, there were multiple fights. Usually the game would only end when someone walked away crying. That would mark the end of our games.

MICHELLE: When we were very young, I remember Melissa giving me a black eye because she got so competitive when playing rounders! I was definitely a target because I was the youngest. There was no sympathy, win or lose. So, you always hoped to be on the winning side. If you were on the losing side with Melissa? God help you!

MELISSA: Michelle got a lot of sympathy for that black eye! Aprille gave her another one after chasing her around the house!

APRILLE: That’s why we always say “poor Michelle”, but it made her tough!

MICHELLE: Melissa has always had a winner’s mindset. She’s so determined to win and fair play to her. She wants to achieve great things and win all the time. It’s a great quality to have, but the rest of us wouldn’t really have been the same.

Michelle, Melissa and Aprille Duggan celebrate Dohenys' West Cork LGFA Division 2 final victory last season.

GMC: The Duggan family is entrenched in Dohenys football. So which one of you is the favourite, and how important have your mum Anne and dad Michael been throughout your individual journeys?

MELISSA: I am definitely not the favourite! We think our oldest sister, Louise, is. We would all agree, yeah?

MICHELLE: Yeah, definitely Louise.

MELISSA: Mam and Dad go to all our games. Even if Dohenys have a challenge game, they are there. They have always been brilliant to support all of us. They treat every game as an important one. Whenever there are two games on at the same time, for Cork and Dohenys, they split up and make sure one of them is at each game.

GMC: The disappointment of losing the 2025 Munster LGFA junior semi-final at home to Cromane is tempered by the fact Dohenys will play intermediate football in 2026. I’d imagine there’s going to be a lot of excitement looking ahead to next year. How much of Dohenys’ improvement is down to the younger players stepping up over the past 12 months?

MICHELLE: Absolutely, and I believe the young players who made a massive difference to us this year will be just as important next year. That’s why having Melissa on the team, helping and encouraging them, is so important. It is a young player’s game these days. You need people who can get up and down the pitch for the full 60 minutes. We’ve played senior and intermediate teams in the county league and know what’s coming, the physicality and what we have to do to compete. Competing in Munster should stand to us, especially the younger girls who took it all in their stride. They will be our main ingredient going up intermediate next year.

Melissa, Michelle and Aprille at the top of Mt Batur, an active volcano in Bali.

GMC: So, does it help being the junior A county champions going into the new year and knowing the hunger will be there to go again?

APRILLE: I think so because the junior A grade is such a hard grade to win. There are so many quality teams in it. In the past, I found it tough going into the new year after losing a final, trying to find the motivation. Now we are coming off a county final win – the first for a lot of girls on the panel. It will definitely drive us on. Already, I think there is a drive to be competitive in a higher grade and see how far we can go in it.

GMC: Part of being involved with a football team in West Cork is all the travelling that’s involved. You have covered plenty of mileage this past year. Training, league, county and Munster championship games… what were those car journeys like with all three of you in the same vehicle?

MELISSA: The car journeys are great craic, especially when all three of us are together. It’s also how we formed bonds with the younger players, collecting them from college and bringing them down to training when there was more than one car heading to Dunmanway. This year I started bringing bags of goodies. I’d have sweets and popcorn. Popcorn became very popular. Those kinds of things make long journeys easier, especially when you are training twice a week. Even though we are sisters, we mightn’t see each other all week only for training, with work and everything. So it’s great to have a catch-up in the car. The first Wednesday after the season ended, when there was no training, I didn’t know what to do with myself. So, those car journeys are always enjoyable, until people start giving out about your driving. That’s another story!

APRILLE: There’s nothing wrong with the driving! Maybe the odd day, if we were running late and having to rush, there’d be a few speed bumps hit on the road to Dunmanway. Sometimes you’d be looking forward to the car trip and Melissa’s sweets more than the training. If you were driving up and down on your own, you wouldn’t look forward to it at all. In the car with these two? The hours fly by and you wouldn’t want to get out as we’re having such a laugh.

Michelle, Aprille and Melissa hanging out with one of the stars of the show at the Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Bali in late 2022.

GMC: What about after a defeat or a tough training session? 

MICHELLE: To be fair, if we ever lose, we don't speak about the match. But if we win? Jesus, we’d be hopping off the roof of the car with excitement! That’s why it is great to have the company in the car – it really does help you bond with the other girls. I was lost, like Melissa, the first Wednesday night we weren’t training. That’s why we all started messaging each other and reliving the good times and all the craic over the past year. That’s what it’s all about really, isn’t it?