9 December 2015
By Bryan T. Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
Mary White has been named December Cork Person of the Month for her promotion of ladies football for fourteen years. Her name now goes forward, with the other Persons of the Month picked this year for possible selection as Cork Person of the Year at a Gala Awards Lunch on Jan 15th next, at the Rochestown Park Hotel.
Mary has just written a book ‘Relentless – The Inside Story of the Cork Ladies Footballers’, giving the full story of what made the Cork ladies footballers one of the most successful ladies football teams ever.
She played herself, she started promoting the game as PRO for the Cork Ladies Football Board aged just 22, securing major sponsorships for the sport, which included a three-year deal with Smart Telecom, and media sponsor the Evening Echo, and has spent the last decade covering the game for the Evening Echo and Irish Examiner while working a full-time job.
Over the past eleven years the Cork team have won the senior All-Ireland final ten times, losing just once ever in the All-Ireland series. They claimed their second five-in-a-row this year, with a record attendance for ladies sport in Europe. The growing popularity of ladies football has been driven by people like Mary White through her print and online journalism which has led to further growth in ladies football in schools and colleges.
Pictured at the award presentation l/r Pat Lemasney, Southern (Sponsor); Manus O’Callaghan, Awards Organiser; Jacqui Hurley, RTE Sports Presenter; Mary White, Cork Person of the Month; Ann-Marie O’Sullivan, AM O’Sullivan PR (Sponsor); John Lehane, Lexus Cork (Sponsor); Eamonn Ryan, Manager, Cork Ladies Football Team. Pic: by Tony O’Connell Photography.
