Down ladies’ footballer Clara Mulvenna says that it is an exciting time to be involved with the county team. The Mourne ladies are just over a week away from the start of their new season, which begins with a home game against Louth on Sunday, January 25.
Clara, who was captain in 2025, explained that she thinks the popularity of the game is remarkable and is driving her and her teammates to want to achieve more. “A lot of people want to play for Down now. That is one thing we can take out of the success of the last couple of years, that Down football is really thriving.
“It is a motivation to keep turning up, keep the momentum going and keep the standards high with Down. I was at a meeting and they read out about the registered numbers involved in the LGFA in Down and it was unbelievable. They say it is growing every year.
“Even in my own club (Rostrevor), the amount of players that are coming in is growing. They are younger but they are coming in and they want to play football.”
She said the growing interest in playing the game is down to the success of recent years. The Down ladies’ footballers beat Limerick to win the All-Ireland junior title in 2023, won the Ulster intermediate title in 2024 with victory over Tyrone, finished third in Division Three of the National League in 2025, and also reached the Ulster final again last year. Although they lost to Cavan on that occasion, strong performances have continued to be beneficial.
“People see us really competing now. We are pushing teams like Cavan and Tyrone. We want to win All-Irelands and we are capable of doing so. People in Down see that and they see the potential. People want to be a part of that now, whereas maybe so many years ago that wasn’t the case.
“In the past they sort of wrote you off early. Now people appreciate and want to be involved in the set-up.”
Their immediate goal is promotion to Division Two, and Clara believes they are close to achieving that. In 2025 they were three points behind a promotion place, in 2024 it was one point, and in 2023 they missed out on points difference.
“I do think we are good enough to go up because of the depth in our squad and our players. We have a great mix of old and new players. We definitely have the talent and the potential. I don’t think we start any year thinking that we can’t get out of Division Three. If we put our minds to it, show up and are consistent, then that is what we would hope.”
The management team last year was led by Monaghan man Colm Donnelly, who is in his second year in charge. He had been involved in the latter stages of Peter Lynch and Caoibhe Sloan’s management term in 2024, which Clara said helped in 2025.
“He had three or four months from the previous season and came in around championship time. He knew us as players, so there wasn’t that breaking-in period. The newer players had a breaking-in period, but for the majority of us, we knew how he liked to do things and what he expected of us, and vice versa. It was quite nice to have that last year going into the league.”
Clara described the 2025 season as an up-and-down campaign. “We definitely had a rollercoaster of a year. We had some pretty good highs in terms of team performances and grinding out results, and then on the flip side there were some days where we just didn’t show up.”
In the full article Clara goes on to explain what the team learned from last year and how they can improve in 2026.
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