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6th May 2025
01:29pm BST
On a humid afternoon this weekend at St Peregrine’s GAA Club Blanchardstown, west of Dublin, thirty camogie players took the field not in the sport's traditional skorts, but in shorts.
They weren't in war paint or waving placards but they may as as well have been. The Kilkenny and Dublin senior teams had shown up for a Leinster semi-final in what is standard kit in almost every field sport: a jersey and a pair of shorts. Yet under Rule 6(b) of the Camogie Association, this wardrobe choice was insubordinate. The match official told them the game would not go ahead unless they changed.
Kilkenny stood their ground on the pitch; Dublin walked off in protest. Both teams eventually retreated to the dressing rooms, swapped back into their mandated skorts, and played the match under protest. Kilkenny won, 4-11 to 2-12, but the scoreboard wasn’t the point. The fight had moved from the field to the fabric.
Skorts, an awkward hybrids of skirt and short, occupy a peculiar place in the cultural taxonomy of Irish sport. They’re neither form nor function; rather, they’re a historical artefact. A vestigial remnant that expects female athletes to signal femininity at all times, even when lashing sliotars up across pitches. Camogie uniforms have evolved from ankle-length pinafores to pleated mini-kilts, but Rule 6(b) endures: players must wear a "skirt/skort/divided skirt." Violate it, and you risk a yellow card or ejection.
"In no other area in our lives are we told that we have to wear something that resembles a skirt." Niamh Gannon, the captain of Dublin’s camogie team, told RTÉ. "Why is it happening in our sport?". Kilkenny captain Katie Power told the Irish Independent that she just can't understand how camogie players are still being "forced to wear a skort in this day and age".
Their frustration is backed by data. A recent survey of 650 inter-county camogie players found that 83% wanted the option to wear shorts. Seventy percent reported discomfort in skorts; 65% said they were worried about unwanted exposure in photos and videos.
The protest ignited a wave of public and political support. Tánaiste Simon Harris told RTE the skort mandate “archaic” and backed the players’ demand for choice. Alan Kelly, chair of the Oireachtas Sports Committee, also told RTE he would invite the Camogie Association to address the issue before the committee. He called the rule “bananas” in 2025 . Pundits Neil McManus and Jackie Tyrrell labeled the situation a “failure” and a “no-brainer.” They urged the Association to listen to its players .
Former All-Star Ursula Jacob lamented that the controversy was distracting from the sport’s achievements. She also noted that the players don't train in skorts for her piece in The Irish Times. In the Examiner, journalist Sarah Harte called the rule “ingrained sexism” in sports culture . On reddit some called for solidarity from the male players. earth-calling-karma commented “The men should wear skorts at the next game in solidarity.” The protest also inspired a similar action by Laois’s intermediate team. They also wore shorts before their Leinster semi-final, earning cheers from supporters before being forced to change .
But not everything was unwavering support, many anonymous online commenters said the women were kicking up a fuss over nothing. That skorts were no different from shots.
On TikTok user5515472190088 said “Personally i think the skorts look better i have girls that play the sport and as there is shorts attached to the skirt”.
The Camogie Association has so far held the line. There was a motion at their Annual Congress only last year (2024) that would have allowed shorts, several motions in fact. They all failed. The players want shorts, but all the county board heads are tied to tradition. The Association, made up of mostly women, cited the "democratic process," and more recently announced a working group to explore more comfortable skort designs. It’s a response that feels condescending and beside the point. As Kilkenny forward Katie Power put it: "We’re not asking to wear something ridiculous. We’re just asking to wear what every other sport wears".
The skort debacle is part of a broader pattern. The disproportionate policing of women’s sports uniforms, often under the guise of tradition, modesty, or marketability. From camogie fields to Olympic arenas, female athletes face restrictions that would be laughable if they weren’t so enduring.
In gymnastics, the German women’s team made headlines at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics when they wore full-body unitards rather than the conventional thigh-baring leotards. To fight the sexualization of their sport. "We wanted to show that every woman, everybody, should decide what to wear," said gymnast Elisabeth Seitz to the BBC. The unitards were legal under FIG rules but rarely used, until German athletes made them symbolic.
In track and field, Nike’s Team USA kits for the 2024 Olympics featured a high-cut leotard for women and knee-length shorts for men. The visual was jarring. "If this outfit was truly beneficial to performance," said former U.S. champion Lauren Fleshman to the Guardian, "men would wear it." The backlash was swift, prompting Nike to clarify that women could opt for shorts if they asked.
Tennis has had its moments, too. Serena Williams’ black catsuit, worn at the 2018 French Open to help prevent blood clots postpartum, was banned by the French Tennis Federation. The resulting backlash forced the WTA to modernize its dress code. By 2019, players could wear leggings without skirts. At Wimbledon, after years of complaints about competing in all-white during menstruation, women were finally allowed to wear dark undershorts in 2023.
Then there’s beach handball, where the Norwegian women’s team was fined €1,500 in 2021 for wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms. The public sided with the players. Pop star Pink offered to pay the fine. The rule changed within months according to The Guardian.
In each of these cases, the official rationale of tradition, brand visibility, cultural norms obscured a simpler truth: these uniforms weren’t designed for performance; they were designed to please someone else’s eye. The enforcement is almost exclusively directed at women. Paralympian Olivia Breen was once told by an official that her sprint briefs were "too short and inappropriate" despite being regulation issue. Male athletes, of course, sprint in shorts that flap in the wind.
The psychological toll of these double standards is cumulative. Athletes talk about the distraction, the anxiety, the constant awareness of how their bodies appear. In an inverview with Evoke.ie Dublin Camogie star Emma O'Byrne said, "for about 30% of a game that I play, I'm constantly thinking about how my skort looks, pulling it down, constantly thinking about if my skort is okay or just being in general discomfort when it comes to wearing a skort". That is 30% is time she could be spending on the game.
Some teenage girls quit camogie rather than wear a skort. Others pop birth control pills to avoid bleeding through white tennis skirts. A study from Massey University found that sports uniforms contribute to increased anxiety in female athletes. Particularly around body image and menstruation.
What’s at stake here is autonomy. Comfort. The right to play a sport without being treated like a marketing asset. Camogie’s stubborn attachment to skorts is a last gasp of institutional paternalism in a sport otherwise modernising.
The question today is why in 2025 with all of the national and international examples of female sports people advocating for more neutral uniforms do camogie players need a protest to be heard. In 2027, when the Camogie Association merges with the GAA the question will be if athletes ask for shorts, who has the right to say no?
