The GAA Social: Shauna Ennis left 'distraught and seething with anger' by fallout from All-Ireland fixture clash
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Shauna Ennis is a double All-Ireland senior football winning captain with Meath
Double Meath All-Ireland senior football winning captain Shauna Ennis has highlighted the extent of the problems facing dual players.
Speaking on The GAA Social podcast, Ennis, who also plays camogie, explained that the issue came to a head when her club Na Fianna were involved in All-Ireland semi-finals in both codes within 23 hours in December.
The primary school teacher said she was left "distraught and seething with anger" by what she believes was the injustice caused by the governance problems which led to the fixture clash.
Her comments come as news that the Gaelic Athletic Association, Ladies Gaelic Football Association and the Camogie Association would become fully integrated as one organisation in 2027 was revealed at Croke Park on Tuesday.
It is hoped that the announcement will herald a new era of closer co-operation among the governing bodies as they move towards amalgamation.
Ennis's club won their county senior camogie title and intermediate football title last year and went on to collect the Leinster crown in both codes also.
The problems arose when the club's All-Ireland camogie semi-final was scheduled for Saturday at 14:00 GMT, with their footballers' last-four tie planned for 13:00 the following day.
"We're not a massive club so we would have a huge crossover of girls who play both. We have nine outfield players that start for both teams," explained the All Star.
"Both associations [the LGFA and the Camogie Association] were pre-warned that if we won the two Leinster finals the fixtures for the All-Ireland semi-finals were scheduled for the same weekend.
"As soon as that happened, we began posting on social media and we really tried to bring as much attention to it as we could.
"Our argument was that there was a free weekend beforehand and a free week after, could we not play one of the games then. The LGFA came back and said 'no, we can't move it', we need two weeks to make up the programmes for the All-Ireland final or something like that. A kind of nothing response really to be honest.
"We were basically told the best we could do was play one on the Saturday and one on the Sunday."
'A fair shot after putting your life on hold'
Na Fianna ultimately defeated Tyrone club Eglish in Louth on Saturday, with Ennis then travelling around 300km by bus to Cork to face Glenmaire, who went on to win both that semi-final and the final to be crowned All-Ireland champions.
"After that football match I was just distraught, seething with anger. Anyone who tried to come near me I kept saying, 'this is not fair, this is a joke, this shouldn't have happened'.
"I'd been training for 12 months, you put your life on hold and all you are asking is a fair shot at it.
"Our club getting to an All-Ireland semi-final might never happen again, the likelihood of that happening is very slim, so you definitely couldn't talk to me for a week after that game.
"I would love to have had people from both associations at that game and see what it meant to people. They made their decision so quickly, saying it can't be changed, but people have feelings and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I don't think they really thought it through when they made that call.
"And that then got in the way of me preparing for my All-Ireland camogie final, I was so raging about the football.
Shauna Ennis celebrates after winning the 2022 All-Ireland Football title with Meath
"It seems there are so many more girls who want to play both and are so talented at both it's such a shame they may eventually have to choose one and then you lose out on a really good footballer or a really good hurler.
"We don't want this to happen again to another club, that's why we are campaigning so strongly."
Despite the bad experience she endured at the hands of fixture schedulers at an All-Ireland level, Ennis finds encouragement in the compromise arrangements reached in her home county of Meath over the last couple of years.
"In Meath in the last two years our county boards [of football and camogie] have made a huge effort to meet at the beginning of the year and we have broadly played football one weekend, camogie the next weekend," she explained.
"There was a time when you could have been playing a championship football match on a Tuesday night and a championship camogie match on a Wednesday night. We were frustrated but that was the norm and no-one was talking about it.
"If you were a dual player you just had to play two days in a row. But there has been a huge improvement," she revealed.