Marie Crowe on raising a sports-mad family and playing GAA

RTÉ News​

4 days ago

With a young sports-mad family and a full schedule of summer tournaments, RTÉ sports presenter Marie Crowe is busy doing what she loves. She talks to Claire O'Mahony about the importance of sports for young women, as well as everyone else.
Chatting to Marie Crowe the day after the All-Ireland semi-final, when Donegal trounced Meath in the football, demands the question: what does she reckon Donegal's chances are against Kerry in the final?
"I think if they can stop David Clifford, they can be in with a great chance of winning but I don't know, he's so good, it's going to be very difficult," says the sports presenter, who wasn't at the match on the gloriously sunny Sunday, but was instead at work in the basement of the RTÉ Radio Centre.
It's a full-on summer for Marie, who recently returned from maternity leave, after she gave birth to her daughter, Jessie, in March. She and husband Billy Sheehan, who played for Kerry and managed Laois, also have three sons: Timmy (13), Billy (11) and Davie (8).
The Clare native is currently presenting the live daily coverage of the Women's Euros, as well as Game On, the sports show on RTÉ 2FM that he presents with Ruby Walsh from Monday to Friday, and then Sunday Sport with Des Cahill at the weekends.
"It's busy, but we're used to having a busy life, so it's fine," she says. "I went back to work a little bit earlier than I had anticipated because of the Women's Euros, and I made a decision to work on them. My husband is a teacher, and he's off during the summer, so it's worked out well.
"I'm loving the Women's Euros. I'm delighted to be given the opportunity to do something that I really wanted to do and that I have worked hard to get to do, so I will not be feeling bad about having to go to work because I chose to. I love showing the kids as well that it's OK to make decisions and go and do something that you really want to do."
Four-month-old Jessie, she says, is an easy baby. "I always say that when I had the three boys together, it was like living in a tornado, and then Jessie is so Zen. She's so good-humoured and laughs all the time. She's brilliant. I would recommend to everybody!"
Football Families is the broadcaster's latest project. The new three-part series digs deep into the world of young soccer players, chasing the dream of professional football. It's a behind-the-scenes look at Shelbourne F.C's soccer academy, highlighting the hard work involved and pressures these teenagers are under, as well as the sacrifices that families make to help their children on this journey.
The series concept originated with Marie. "I came up with the idea four years ago, when I was watching a series about an academy in the UK. My kids were loving it and really interested in it. We were watching it together every week, which is not a normal thing to do any more, and they were glued to it," she says.
"I was thinking there's so many great stories in the teams that they play in and so many brilliant kids and parents making commitments and driving from all over, all wanting to play football. I just thought we don't get to hear enough about young Irish kids who want to go on and be footballers."
The series also serves as something of a cautionary tale, because not everyone will be able to turn their dreams into reality and make it at elite level football.
"I think it shows it's OK to want it. It's OK to want to follow your dream, and yet you see kids and people that don't make it, and that's OK too. Not everybody can make it, and I think there has to be an understanding that just because you want something, it doesn't mean it's going to happen, and we need to tell those stories as well," she says, adding: "We don't talk enough about failure in life, I think. It's OK to fail – absolutely. You don't have to make the team the first time, second time, third time or ever. It's fun to try and you do learn a lot from trying and following that pathway."
She grew up as one of seven children – she has four sisters and two brothers – in Sixmilebridge, Co Clare. Her father was a PE teacher and all the family were involved in sport; Marie played camogie, Gaelic and soccer. After an arts degree, RTÉ GAA reporter Marty Morrissey, a family friend, encouraged her to try to land a position at Clare FM.
Years later, Marty "introduced" Marie to her husband Billy Sheehan at their wedding, to the strains of The Sunday Game theme tune. "It was a very GAA wedding," she laughs.
After spending two years as a sports broadcaster at the Co Clare station, she moved to the Sunday Independent, joining the paper's sports department. "That's really where I got good training and grounding," she says.
"It was a great place to work, and I learned so much from being in the newsroom environment because back then, 2008, papers were so big. It's mad to think how things have changed so much since then." In 2014, she went to the short-lived TV channel UTV Ireland. That closed in 2016, while Marie was on maternity leave, but after that, she joined RTÉ as a sports presenter.
Last year, she was the joint winner of the Journalist of the Year Award with Mark Tighe for RTÉ Investigates: Girls in Green, which exposed allegations of predatory behaviour and misogyny in Irish women's football. It was a big moment, but for her, getting the documentary over the line was more significant than the accolade.
"Without people telling their stories, there would be no story, so that was much more important. To see those women being able to tell their stories and to know the effect and the impact they're going to have on sport for Jessie and all the girls and boys coming through, that they've made it a safer space, is way more important than anything I could ever achieve from an award perspective."
Her three boys are all into sports; was that a given from the outset? "I guess it probably was, and sometimes I wonder about that, if we had introduced music into the house or other hobbies, would they have taken to them as much. But they've always been exposed to the sidelines because I was playing for St Patrick's Athletic soccer team, so they'd always come to matches and training with me and they'd always be with Billy as well at matches, so they didn't know any different," she says.
"But they really enjoy it and they do lots of different sports. Timmy, my eldest, is in the Shelbourne Academy, which the series is about. Two of them had a basketball camp today; one had hurling camp. Timmy has soccer training tonight, and the other two boys are doing the Crumlin Mini World Cup. It's just go-go-go, but it's a choice.
"We're happy to facilitate what they want to do because our parents gave us the opportunity to play sports when we were growing up, so we're just kind of giving back. It's full circle really."
At the moment, she's doing Gaelic4Mothers&Others, a non-competitive, fun initiative, which sees women playing Ladies Gaelic Football in a social environment.
"It's the best thing that I've done," she said. "It's a bit of fun and a lot of craic. You play blitzes and go to tournaments, and we've travelled to New York and Barcelona; we're going to Philadelphia in October."
Her 'me time' is watching her kids play sport. "I love standing on the sideline with the buggy and my cup of coffee and just chill out. It's how I switch off,"
She is well-positioned to comment on the evolution and rapid rise of women's elite sport but there are still many challenges to overcome. The lack of women coaches is one glass ceiling that remains unbroken, she believes.
"It's predominantly male, and I think it's because women still put everybody else first. They have to carry the domestic load, so it's hard to make the time to pick up a bag of balls and go coach a football team after they've done everything at home and they've gone to work."
The high drop-out rate of girls from sport when they reach their teens is something she'd like to see more research into, and then there's the difficulty for female elite players in growing their fan base. "If we could get more people watching and engaging in women's sport, there would be more financial support going into the top level," she says.
With Football Families, Marie says it has been an important project for her, and one that took a huge amount of work.
"We need to highlight the importance of football academies because if we don't have kids who want to be footballers, we're not going to have a good Ireland team: we need to develop our footballers and make sure we have enough coming through.
"We want memories like Italia '90 and USA '94 because these are all great moments that bring Irish people together, so the more we have of that, the better it will be for everyone."