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I t wasn't the first national success she has enjoyed with the team, but the currentaccount.ie All-Ireland Intermediate Club Championship final victory in December at Croke Park is an occasion that Glanmire defender Ellen Twomey will remember for some time to come. Back on December 9, 2018 at Duggan Park in Ballinasloe, an 18-year-old Twomey featured prominently as the Cork side defeated Tourlestrane of Sligo in a currentaccount.ie All-Ireland Junior Championship decider on a scoreline of 1-22 to 3-11. Fast forward a little over five years and she was occupying the pivotal position of centre half-back in Glanmire's emphatic 5-8 to 1-6 success against another Connacht outfit in that aforementioned intermediate showpiece - Leitrim champions Ballinamore Sean O'Heslins providing the opposition in this instance. Additionally, having been an up and coming prospect when they claimed county, provincial and All-Ireland crowns in 2018, Twomey was tasked with leading the team as captain over the course of an unforgettable club season in 2023. This meant that she had the honour of lifting the intermediate trophy on behalf of her club at GAA HQ and this proved to be a great privilege from her own point of view. "The girls that I'm representing are the best bunch of girls you could imagine. Last year with training, obviously everyone has put in a shift when we're out on the pitch for an hour and a half or whatever it may be three times a week," acknowledged Twomey, who is a teacher at her alma mater, Glanmire Community College. "Last year as well, everyone was kind of doing their own bits outside of training. Whether it was extra road running, in gym, getting their nutrition work right, whatever it may be. Everyone was pulling their weight that bit extra as well last year. "Everyone had really bought into it last year. We pulled out all the stops, we sacrificed so much. For me to be representing the girls and going up and collecting the cup, any one of them could have been up there, so it was an absolute privilege to do it." While Glanmire had achieved that clean sweep of titles in the junior ranks of club football, their main focus in 2023 was initially just on finishing at the summit of the Cork intermediate championship. Yet after their county final triumph over Naomh Aban was followed up by a Munster showpiece victory at the expense of Limerick's Monagea, Twomey and her team-mates started to dream big. "It kind of came as a bit of a surprise to us [going all the way to an All-Ireland final and winning it] because at the start we would have been just planning for the county final. After defeats for the last three years in-a-row, all we wanted was the county final this year. "Obviously then, when we got as far as the Munster series and the All-Ireland series, we 28 | SPRING 2024 | www.ladiesgaelic.ie CLUB FOCUS GLANMIRE'S ELLEN TWOMEY SPEAKS ABOUT THE SQUAD'S JOURNEY FROM COUNTY TO ALL-IRELAND FINAL. BY DAIRE WALSH