By Daire Walsh 

Winning a maiden TG4 All-Ireland senior football championship title ensured 2024 was already a special year for Kerry goalkeeper Ciara Butler, but the Castlegregory native has been given a couple of extra reasons to be cheerful since that final victory over Galway back on August 4.

For her outstanding save to tip over an effort from Meath’s Marion Farrelly in their TG4 All-Ireland senior football championship quarter-final clash with The Kingdom in Tralee on July 6, Butler was awarded this year’s ZuCar Golden Glove. She was presented with that personal accolade on September 12 in Croke Park and a little over two months later, Butler was back in the capital at the nearby Bonnington Dublin Hotel for the TG4 All Star awards banquet.

From the 15 Kerry players that were nominated on the night, seven of them were ultimately selected on the All Star team with Butler herself named in the number one position.

“An All Star is obviously a lovely award to get at the end of a very successful year for the team. You probably don’t really realise how much of an achievement it is until you see how much it means to your family and friends,” Butler said.

“Even here in the club, we lost Brenda Casey before the Munster final. She would have been nearly the backbone of Castlegregory LGFA for years and a massive Kerry ladies supporter. Speaking to her family, her husband and I’d be best friends with her daughter. They were just so joyful with our win, so it definitely makes it worthwhile.

“There was 15 of us up there and to be honest, nearly 30 of us could have been up there because we all put in the same amount of work. It kind of  just happens that the starters probably get more of a recognition, but definitely all the girls deserved everything that came their way. We probably proved that at the end with the All-Ireland.”

Keen to emphasise the power of the collective when it comes to the recognition that she and her Kingdom colleagues gained at the TG4 All Stars, this is also the case for Butler when she speaks about her Golden Glove award. Without the hard work of her understudy – Southern Gaels’ Mary Ellen Bolger – and goalkeeping coach Sean Dee, Butler doesn’t believe this particular award would have come her way.

“I suppose goalies probably don’t get recognition that much. It’s always nearly the scorers, so it’s obviously a lovely award to get. Myself and Mary Ellen (Bolger), we’d be very tight and Sean Dee did so much with us. I was nearly lucky to get the reward.

“Mary Ellen deserved the award too for all the work she put in. I was lucky to start, but at the end of the day we were so tit-for-tat and I was so lucky to get starting for the All-Ireland.”

While she was just 20 years of age when Kerry secured their first All-Ireland crown since 1993 in Croke Park back in August, this year actually represented Butler's fifth season on the Kingdom senior panel. Having previously been coached by the duo in the minor ranks of the county, Butler was handed a senior championship debut by joint-managers Declan Quill and Darragh Long against Cavan at St Brendan’s Park in Birr on November 1, 2020.

She has had a memorable battle for Kerry’s goalkeeper slot with the aforementioned Bolger since then, but Butler was between the sticks for a host of big games over the past four years.

After donning the number one jersey when the Kingdom lost to Meath in a Lidl National Football League Division Two decider at Croke Park in 2021, she did likewise when her county went a step further against Armagh in the same competition at GAA HQ the following year.

Yet she was also the last line of defence when Kerry fell short against Meath and Dublin in the 2022 and 2023 All-Ireland senior championship deciders respectively. Considering the heartbreak she experienced in the previous two seasons, this year’s success was an understandably emotional one for Butler.

“I actually came in by pure luck. The two goalies unfortunately got injured and I was after playing minor with Darragh and Declan. They called me in, the season of 2020. We lost to Cork in Austin Stacks.

“This year, there was probably a minute left and the clock is kind of going down. Mary O’Connell was beside me. I remember embracing her and I would have played all the way up with Mary. To just say to each other ‘we finally did it’.

“All the hurt from the two years before was gone and Mary would be someone that we’d be very close. In terms of we’ve talked about the feeling of losing and how upset we were. Just to spend those final few moments on the pitch with her was fantastic and a memory I’ll have for life.”

As a marketing and management student at TUS Midwest, Butler often travels up and down from Kerry training with a number of other Limerick-based squad members – such as Bolger, Anna Galvin, Síofra O’Shea and Ciara McCarthy.

However, away from her studies she also has what she describes as probably ‘the best job in the country’ in Castlegregory – a place that is very close to her heart, as many in the Kingdom panel can attest to.

“I’d nearly get a slagging in with Kerry about how much I talk about Castlegregory. It’s just such a lovely community to be a part of. I probably have the best job in the country. I work in my local bar in Castlegregory, Fitzgerald’s,” Butler added.

“God, I’d say I’ve never worked a bank holiday! The boss would be giving out to me, he says ‘when you finish this football, you’re definitely working every bank holiday for the foreseeable!’ They’re so accommodating and I can’t speak highly enough of them. They probably have the best pizza in Castlegregory, and even in Kerry. 

“Obviously I’m a waitress, so when I go into work after games, it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl. They’d be always asking about the games, no matter what age from young up to the 60 year olds. The interest they have in the game since I started playing is unreal.”

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