LGFA MATCH PROGRAMME: DIANE O’HORA (MAYO)
By Daire Walsh
In spite of it being a landmark victory for the county, Diane O’Hora and Mayo were not prepared to let their All-Ireland final triumph of 1999 go down as a flash in the pan.
Four-point winners at the expense of Waterford a year earlier with O’Hora as captain, the westerners squeezed past the Deise by the slenderest of margins (3-6 to 0-14) to claim the Brendan Martin Cup crown in 2000. Their bid to claim a third successive All-Ireland SFC was halted by Laois 12 months on from completing back-to-back titles, but it remained a notable feat for a Mayo side that hadn’t appeared in a senior championship decider before the first of those victories.
“It’s a credit to the management because being from Mayo and I’ve said this before, it’s a county at senior level that hasn’t been blessed with success in the last 50 if not more years. For us as a senior team at the time to have won in ’99, it was a huge occasion for the county,” O’Hora acknowledged.
“It’s one thing to win one, but to win back-to-back is even bigger again. The Meath ladies showed that can be done. At the time we were blessed to have been able to do it.”
After an extended spell in New York as part of a course she was doing in IT Sligo (now known as ATU Sligo), O’Hora was watching from the stands when Mayo reclaimed their All-Ireland crown with a 0-12 to 1-8 win against Monaghan in 2002.
Yet she was subsequently welcomed back into the fold and it was a late goal by the Ballina native that ultimately helped the green and red to once again defend their Brendan Martin Cup crown in a low-scoring affair (1-4 to 0-5) with Dublin on October 5, 2003.
“Someone won a free, I think it was probably around the ‘45’. Cora [Staunton] just knocked it into the box and I suppose right time, right place. A forward’s job is to do what you’re there to do and that’s to score.
“I was lucky the ball fell right to me. I think Cliodhna O’Connor [Dublin goalkeeper] tried to punch it and it kind of came down into my hands at the edge of the square. Then I just managed to put it into the back of the net.”
A run of four All-Ireland final wins over the span of five years certainly made this a golden era for Mayo ladies football. During this time, the team made a point of visiting as many schools as possible to help grow the sport and two-time All Star O’Hora (who is hoping to guide Kildare to an All-Ireland IFC success as manager this afternoon) provides a perfect example of how important this was.
“A girl called Deirdre Devine from Bonniconlon came in training as a keeper with Mayo. She was on the county panel for a couple of years. Only recently I think she had come home from England for a visit. She has moved home now, but she sent me a picture of her school book that I signed when she was in primary school. It’s just actually the coolest thing ever,” O’Hara explained.
“She wrote a little note beside it that I had come into her school. That I had signed it and I was captain of the team in that year.
“It’s so funny, 20 years later then she sends me the image of that. In the middle of all of this, we’d also have been playing on the Mayo team. When you think of those school visits, the value of what they had. The positive impact is just unbelievable.”