After More Than a Century in Skorts and Skirts, Ireland’s Camogie Allows Shorts
Europe|After More Than a Century in Skorts and Skirts, Ireland’s Camogie Allows Shorts
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/world/europe/camogie-skorts-shorts-vote-ireland.html
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A committee vote on Thursday approved a measure that would allow players in the women’s sport to choose between shorts or skorts during official play.
The sport’s rules were written more than a century ago, when the mere playing of Gaelic games was a political act in British-occupied Ireland. Much has changed for the island and its athletes since then, but one thing has not: Women on Gaelic Camogie teams are forbidden from wearing shorts during official play and are required to wear a skort.
On Thursday, 121 years since the first rules ensconced the gendered uniform requirements, the Camogie Athletic Association voted to allow players to choose to wear either shorts or a skort.
“We welcome the result of this evening’s vote for choice,” the Gaelic Player’s Association, which includes Ireland’s Camogie players, said in a statement posted on X. “The GPA would like to put on the record our admiration for Camogie players across Ireland and beyond, both at inter-county and club level, who made their voices heard to ensure this outcome.”
In a country that prides itself on contemporary, progressive policies, the exhaustive debate over Camogie apparel has needled some of Ireland’s most entrenched underbellies. For years, athletes have said they would prefer to play in shorts. Young girls have said the same, and studies have shown that attire concerns are one of the main reasons girls quit athletics at a young age.
Still, the sport’s global governing body, the Camogie Association, had repeatedly voted to keep the skort rule in place, endorsing tradition and history — and, players said, gender bias.
The rule “screams sexism,” Jane Adams, a former Camogie All-Star from County Antrim, in Northern Ireland, told the BBC.