by Daragh Ó Conchúir

Kilkenny captain Katie Power is still on the go 17 years on from winning a league title.

You know the song. Maybe you think you don’t, but chances are, if Paul Simon’s chorus is playing in the background, you’ll hum along.

Still crazy after all these years.

It is a little nostalgic, a little wistful perhaps, but primarily, it feels defiant. Time might take its toll, old friends may have moved on, but the flame still burns.

Sounds like Katie Power to this observer. It is a stupendous 17 years since she was called up to the Kilkenny senior camogie panel after a blue chip underage career that had yielded five All-Irelands at minor and U16 levels.

The 5’5” slip of a girl scored the Cats’ opening point as they secured what is now the Very League Division 1A title by defeating Galway at UPMC Nowlan Park at the end of April 2008 and the world was her oyster.

Anne Dalton, Lizzie Lyng, Sinéad Millea, Michelle Quilty, Jacqui Frisby, Aoife Neary, Edwina Keane and Collette Dormer were among the teammates on that memorable maiden campaign.

Denise Gaule became a regular the following year, when they reached the All-Ireland final, where champions Cork were too strong.

Power has been last one standing from that 2008 team for a while now. When Gaule decamped to Australia at the end of 2023, the Piltown star was the only one around from the following season.

There have been quite a few injury battles in the latter part of her tenure, which make her endurance all the more remarkable. To that end, the 33-year-old is being given most of the League to clear up some niggles and freshen up after Piltown’s history-making first county senior championship triumph elongated last year.

It was a result that led to the veteran being named Kilkenny captain for 2025. Anyone that knows her will not be surprised to hear that she has had to be persuaded to take a back seat early in the year. Sometimes, you need protecting from yourself, she acknowledges.

In 2019, Power broke her finger very badly and then it began to dislocate all too frequently, but she played through the pain with the help of injections as Kilkenny reached the All-Ireland final.

Just as she recovered, she suffered a broken kneecap that forced her to look on from the sideline as the Stripeywomen finally added a second All-Ireland in 2020, having suffered six final defeats.

She still feels the effects of that injury today as one of the two screws inserted in the joint broke and became embedded in the bone. It was determined that it would be the lesser of two evils to leave them in, but it can be uncomfortable at times.

Power was back on the pitch to earn her third senior All-Ireland in 2022, to go with those five underage medals and the intermediate club All-Ireland won by in 2014.

And still she ploughs on, this year with the armband, as one by one, those she has shared those highs and lows with over a decade and a half have walked off into the sunset.

It isn’t that the thought hasn’t entered her head of doing likewise. But the draw of the hurley, the sliotar, the black and amber (both club and county livery) remains powerful. Consuming.

“There’s obviously been great players down through the last ten years for Kilkenny but people come and go, and that’s just sports, isn’t it?” Power notes.

“I‘d probably be lying if I said giving up didn’t enter my head, especially with the injures, but that’s a short term thing. More so if you’re having a bad day, or you’d wake up in the morning and you’d be sore as a boil and you’d be saying, ‘Why am I doing this to myself’ And you’d see Gaule out in Australia, sunning herself!

“I feel like whenever your time is done, it’s done forever. There won’t be any going back on it, so I’m just gonna try get the best out myself and enjoy what I do while I can. I’d hate to look back then and say, ‘Maybe I could have given another year.’

“Look, I would love to go off and do a bit of traveling, but there will be time to do that whenever the day comes that you’re not going to be able to play the camogie.”

What makes her span all the more admirable now is that Power is a rarity in the inter-county sphere in being self-employed. In the past she has worked as a financial trader but a real passion for strength and conditioning, that started with putting some ballast onto a diminutive frame, as well as the pursuit of fitness for mind as well as body, led to professional pivot.

Having previously worked for the equally long-serving hurling legend, TJ Reid, she now runs her own business in a partnership. PFS is going really well in Kilkenny city and they are looking at taking on another coach to cater for the demand.

Being a personal trainer is obviously beneficial in terms of her own conditioning, but fitting it in around camogie can mean long hours. But ironically, in the height of the season, she has to cut back on hours to ensure she is properly prepared for games and training.

“It’s funny, because people think that it really suits and look, there obviously is aspects that do come into that, that complement the camogie, but then there’s obviously huge disadvantages to it as well, like the early mornings, the late evenings, the fact I work for myself. The days you can’t work if you’re playing. When it’s camogie season, I obviously work less hours, so you make less money.”

Being captain is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” that she appreciates as an honour, particularly for her family and club. She doesn’t want to get too wrapped up in the notion of it right now, but reckons it will mean more on an emotional level in time when she is in reflective mode.

Her leadership comes from her actions, her time served. There were some huge battles with Cork over the years and they cross swords again today at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh (2pm).

Whatever happens today, she is enthusiastic about the future.

“Kilkenny camogie haven’t been up to at the top table at senior where we had been for ten years or so. The panel is extremely young this year, there is a lot of girls after being brought in. I think that is exciting for the next couple of years, and it will take them a few years, in terms of experience and S&C and that.

“You notice a heightened sense in training when you know that you’re gonna be playing Cork, and I’m sure It’s the exact same for them. They have been the best team in the country the last two years, and probably by a good stretch as well.

“So, it’s going to be a learning curve for us with new girls and new management. But the girls are all buzzing in training, really looking forward to it… you’ll know a lot more coming out of Páirc Uí Chaoimh after the weekend.”

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