Ireland’s Sevens rugby team had already helped themselves to a slice of history last year by becoming the first Irish women’s side to qualify for the Olympic Games.
And then, last weekend, they only went and added another chapter to their story when they beat Australia in Perth to become the first Irish team to win a World Series tournament.
How excited are we about their Olympic medal-winning prospects? Quite excited. Although we should probably chill a bit.
But who are these women? Here’s a rough guide.
Lucy Mulhall
From: Tinahely, Co Wicklow
Club: Wicklow RFC
Age: 30
Debut: 2015
The long-time captain of Ireland’s Sevens side, Mulhall is one of the squad’s many sporting all-rounders having played Gaelic football for Wicklow, like her mother before her, and tried her hand at camogie, athletics and soccer, amongst many others. She grew up on a farm in Tinahely and now divides her time between rugby and her work in business development with investment management company TritonLake. A towering force for the Sevens side down the years.
Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe
From: Tipperary Town
Club: Railway Union
Age: 29
Debut: 2014
A permanent fixture in the Sevens’ set up for the last decade, it comes as no surprise that the speedy winger was a more than useful 100m runner in her youth. She took up rugby when she was 15 with her local club Clanwilliam and while she has dabbled with the 15s game along the way, making her Test debut in 2021, Sevens has been her focus. She’s Ireland’s top try scorer in the code and was nominated for World Rugby’s Player of the Year in 2022. In other words, she’s handy.
Stacey Flood
From: Rathmines, Dublin
Club: Railway Union
Age: 27
Debut: 2015
Another of the squad to have her sporting roots in Gaelic football, having played underage for Dublin, Flood followed her older sister Kim, who played senior for Dublin and went on to become a rugby international herself (and was more than decent at soccer too) in to the sport. And she’s never looked back. When she finds the time, she works in business development with a financial solutions company.
Eve Higgins
From: Kilcock, Co Kildare
Club: Railway Union
Age: 24
Debut: 2018
There’s a risk of some angry emails from Lucan folk who would claim Higgins as their own, but it was after she moved from the west Dublin town to Kildare’s Kilcock that she commenced her rugby career with Barnhall, where she played with the boys up to under-13 level. After that, she switched to Railway Union, and ever since she’s become one of the cornerstones of this Sevens’ squad. Only Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe, Lucy Mulhall and Stacey Flood have won more caps than the History and Sociology graduate.
Béibhinn Parsons
From: Ballinasloe, Co Galway
Club: Blackrock College
Age: 22
Debut: 2019
One of the most gifted players to emerge in Irish rugby over the years, Parsons became Ireland’s youngest ever senior international in 2018 when she made her debut for the 15s at just 16 – and produced a couple of spectacular tries along the way to confirm her talent. She has since become one of the Sevens’ key players, the Biomedical Science graduate coming from impressive Connacht sporting stock – former Mayo Gaelic football star Tom Parsons is a cousin.
Megan Burns
From: Tullamore, Co Offaly
Club: Blackrock College
Age: 23
Debut: 2018
Tullamore has made a significant contribution to Irish women’s rugby down the years, not least in the shape of former Ireland 15s captain Nichola Fryday, and Burns has added to that roll of honour for the club since joining the Sevens set-up when she was just 18. The sport runs in the family, her father John coaching several of the club’s teams along the way. While studying to become a physiotherapist, Burns also coached at the town’s hockey club.
Alanna Fitzpatrick
From: Portarlington, Co Laois
Club: Blackrock College
Age: 19
Debut: 2023
At just 18, Fitzpatrick became one of the youngest players to represent Ireland in a senior international when she made her debut for the Sevens last summer, just a handful of weeks after finishing her Leaving Cert. She took up rugby with Portarlington RFC and was part of their successful under-16 team, soon after she was added to Ireland’s ‘National Talent Squad’.
Erin King
From: Sydney, Australia
Club: Old Belvedere
Age: 20
Debut: 2021
She’d barely hit her teenage years and she’d already seen a fair chunk of the world, Sydney-born King living for spells in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar when her parents’ work took them there, before the family returned to their roots in Wicklow. Another gifted Gaelic footballer who represented her county at minor level, she has focused since on the sport she first took up when she was living in the Middle East – which is where she made her Irish Sevens debut three years ago, in Dubai.
Lucinda Kinghan
From: Monaghan
Club: Railway Union
Age: 23
Debut: 2019
Kinghan made quite a leap to rugby from her first sporting passion: horse-riding. But once she followed her older sister Natalie in to the newly formed women’s set-up at Monaghan Rugby Club, she was hooked. Since being called in to the Sevens programme, she’s had her injury battles, not least with a stress fracture to her leg that kept her out for the best part of a year. But she’s back, and hell-bent on being part of that Olympics squad.
Vicky Elmes Kinlan
From: Rathnew, Co Wicklow
Club: Wicklow RFC
Age: 20
Debut: 2022
Another Wicklow representative in the squad, alongside captain Lucy Mulhall and Erin King, Elmes Kinlan earned her place in the senior set-up after impressing in the under-18 interprovincial series. “You’re one of the best tacklers I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mulhall told her after her introduction to the squad. “You belong here – and you’re staying here.” Some tribute, that.
Emily Lane
From: Mallow, Co Cork
Club: Blackrock College
Age: 25
Debut: 2018
The scrumhalf is another of this squad’s mainstays, only four players winning more caps for the Sevens. She learned her rugby at Mallow RFC, before joining Blackrock in 2020 when she moved to Dublin to study biochemistry at Trinity. By then, she had earned a Sevens contract with the Irish set-up, and has remained part of it ever since. A measure of her impact was her nomination for the Sevens’ 2023 Player of the Year award alongside team-mates Lucy Mulhall and Amee-Leigh Murphy.
Kate Farrell McCabe
From: Brackernagh, Co Wexford
Club: Suttonians
Age: 22
Debut: 2022
Dublin-born, but we’re going to grant Farrell McCabe Wexford citizenship because she moved there before her first birthday. Her dad was a coach with Gorey Rugby Club, so the sport was in the family blood – although it took a while for it to seep in, show jumping her first love, Gaelic football and camogie not far behind. But tag games in the back garden awakened her interest, and soon enough she was progressing in leaps and bounds with Gorey.
Aoibheann Reilly
From: Ballinasloe, Co Galway/Roscommon
Club: Blackrock College
Age: 23
Debut: 2021
There must be something in the water in Ballinasloe, not content with gifting Béibhinn Parsons to Ireland, they provided Reilly too. Mind you, we’re way too nervous about describing her as a Galway or Roscommon woman, both counties laying claim to her . . . although she’s a former Roscommon underage Gaelic footballer. The Creagh native, now a fully qualified sports scientist, went to the same national school as Parsons and Republic of Ireland football international Heather Payne. Yes, definitely something in the water.
Vikki Wall
From: Dunboyne, Co Meath
Club: Ireland Sevens
Age: 25
Debut: 2024
Well, this was some story. A double senior All-Ireland football winner with Meath, and the 2021 Player of the Year, Wall then headed to Australia where she played for North Melbourne in the 2022 AFL season. Not content with that sporting CV, she decided to give rugby Sevens a shot, a trip to this summer’s Olympics her target. She joined up with the squad last August and made her debut in Perth last month. She was a gifted soccer player too, so that might be next on the agenda. Eileen Gleeson, take note.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our In The News podcast is now published daily – Find the latest episode here
